JVEU'S  LITERATURE  SERIES,  No.  26.  2  O    CENTS 


RUSKIN 


^T  OF  Old  England 

AND 

Construction  of  Sheepfolds 


fornia 

nal  BY 

y  JOHN   RUSKIN 


uthor  of  "Modern  Painters,"  "Crown  cf  Wild   Olive,"  etc.,  etc 


NEW  YORK : 
UNITED  STATES  BOOK  COMPANY 

SUCCESSOKS  TO 

JOHN    W.    LOVELL    COMPANY 

m  WORTH  ST.,  COR.  MISSION  PLACE 

Issued  Weekly,     .\iinu.i;   Subscription,  $15.00.     Sept.  14,  1889. 


BY  SPECIAL  ARRANGEMENT  WITH  THE  AUTHORS. 


Stones  ofYenice 


No. 
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3;i 

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as. 

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JOHN  RUSKm. 


Your. 


ftw  TWr  KRH  \ 


LOVELL'S 

LITERATURE  SERIES 


ISSUED  WEEKLY. 


DESIRABLE  WORKS  OF  CURRENT  AND 
STANDARD  LITERATURE  IN  A  CONVENIENT 
AND  ECONOMICAL  FORM. 


Cts. 

MoDERX  Painters,  Vol.  1.    By  Ruskin 30 

MoDEUN  Painters,  Vol.  2.    Uy  Ruskin 80 

Modern  Painters,  Vol.  3.    By  Ruskin 80 

Modern  Painters,  Vol.  4.    By  Ruskin 80 

Modern  Painters,  Vol.  5.    By  Ruskin 30 

History  OP  the  French  Revolution,  Vol.  1.    By  Carlylo 30 

History  op  the  French  Revolution,  Vol.  2.    By  Carlylo 30 

Stones  op  Venice,  Vol.  1.    By  Ruskin 30 

Stones  OP  Venice,  Vol.  2.    By  Ruskin 30 

Stones  OP  Venice,  Vol.  8.    By  Ruskin 30 

Seven  Lamps  OP  Architecture.    By  Ruskin, 20 

Ethics  op  the  Dust.    By  Ruskin 20 

Sesame  /nd  Lilies.    By  Ruskin 20 

The  Queen  op  the  Air.    By  Ruskin 20 

Crown  op  Wild  Olive.    By  Ruskin SO 

Frederick  the  Great,  Vol.  1.    By  Carlyle 30 

Frederick  the  Great,  Vol.  2.    By  Carlyle 30 

Frederick  the  Great,  Vol.  3.    By  Carlyle 30 

Frederick  the  Great,  Vol.  4.    By  Carlyle 30 

Frederick  the  Great,  Vol.  5.    By  Carlyle 30 

Frederick  the  Great,  Vol.  6.    By  Carlyle 30 

Frederick  the  Great,  Vol.  7.    By  Carlyle —  30 

Frederick  the  Great,  Vol.  8.    By  Carlyle 80 

Past  and  Present.    By  Carlyle 25 

Sartor  Resartus.    By  Carlyle 25 

Art  op  Old  England.    By  Ruskin 25 

Kino  OP  the  Golden  River.    By  Ruskin 25 

Deucalion.    By  Ruskin 80 

St.  Mark's  Rest.    By  Ruskin 25 

Lectures  on  Art.    By  Ruskin 25 

The  Two  Paths.    By  Ruskin 25 

ValDArno;  Pleasures  op  Ei;  gland.    By  Ruskin 20. 

Arrows,  I.    By  Ruskin 20 

Arrows,  IL    By  Ruskin 20 

Our  Fathers  Have  Told  Us;  The  Laws  op  Fesole.    By  Ruskin  ...  25 

A  Joy  Forever  ;  Inaugural  Address.    By  Ruskin 20 

Oliver  Cromwell,  L    By  Carlyle 30 

Oliver  Cromwell,  IL    By  Carlyle 80 

Oliver  Cromwell,  III.    By  Carlyle 80 

Chartism.    By  Carlyle 20 

Poems.    By  Ruskin 20 

Poetry  op  Architecture;  Giotto  and  his  Works.    By  Ruskin 25 


CONTINUED   ON    THIRD    PAGE   OF  COVER. 


ART  OF  OLD  ENGLAND 


Digitized  by  the  Internet  Archive 

in  2007  with  funding  from 

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http://www.archive.org/details/artofoldenglandlOOruskiala 


The  Art  of  England 


LECTUEES   GIYEN  IN  OXFORD 


JOHN  RUSKIN,  D.C.L.,  LL.D. 

HONORABY  STUDENT  OF  CHRISTCHTJRCH,  AND  HONORARY  FELLOW  OF 
C0RPC&-CHR1STI  COLLEGE 


DURING  HIS 

SECOND  TEMTRE  OF  TBE  SLADE  PROFESSORSHIP 


NEW   YORK 
UNITED   STATES   BOOK  COMPANY 

SUCCESSORS    TO 

JOHN    W.    LOVELL    COMPANY 

142    TO    150    WORTH    STREET 


im 

COI^TE^STTS. 


LECTURE  I.  PAOB 

Eealistic  Schools  op  Painting, 5 

D.  Q.  Eossetii  and  W.  Hdman  Hunt. 

LECTURE  II. 

Mythic  Schools  of  Painting, 20 

E.  Burne- Jones  and  O.  F.  Watts. 

LECTURE   IIL 

Classic  Schools  of  Painting, .35 

Sir  F.  Leighton  and  Alma  Tadema. 

LECTURE  IV. 

Fairy  Land,  . .    53 

Mrs.  AUingham  and  Kate  Oreenaioay. 

LECTURE  V. 

The  Fireside, 71 

John  Leech  and  John  Tenniel. 

LECTURE  VL 

The  Hillside, 88 

George  Robson  and  Copley  Fielding, 

Appendix, 107 

Index,    ..,,..,..•••  121 


THE    ART    OF    ENGLAND. 


LECTUKE  I. 

Realistic  Schools  of  Fainting. 

D.    G.    KOSSKTTI    AND    W.    HOLMAN   HUNT. 

I  AM  -well  assured  that  this  audience  is  too  kind,  and  too 
sj-mpathetic,  to  wish  me  to  enlarge  on  the  mingled  feelings 
of  fear  and  thankfulness,  with  which  I  find  myself  once  again 
permitted  to  enter  on  the  duties  in  which  I  am  conscious  that 
before  I  fell  short  in  too  many  ways  ;  and  in  which  I  only 
have  ventured  to  ask,  and  to  accept,  your  farther  trust,  in  the 
hope  of  being  able  to  bring  to  some  of  their  intended  con- 
clusions, things  not  in  the  nature  of  them,  it  seems  to  me, 
beyond  what  yet  remains  of  an  old  man's  energy  ;  but,  be- 
fore, too  eagerly  begun,  and  too  iiTCgularly  followed.  And 
indeed  I  am  parti}-  under  the  impression,  both  in  gratitude 
and  regret,  that  Professor  Richmond's  resignation,  however 
justly  motived  by  his  wish  to  pursue  with  uninterrupted 
thought  the  career  open  to  him  in  his  profession,  had  partly 
also  for  its  reason  the  courtesy  of  concession  to  his  father's 
old  friend  ;  and  his  own  feeling  that  while  yet  I  was  able  to 
be  of  service  in  advancing  the  branches  of  elementary 
art  with  which  I  was  specially  acquainted,  it  was  best  that  I 
should  make  the  attempt  on  lines  already  opened,  and  with 
the  aid  of  old  friends.  I  am  now  alike  comforted  in  having 
left  you,  and  encouraged  in  return  ;  for  on  all  grounds  it  was 
most  desirable  that  to  the  imperfect,  and  yet  in  many  points 
new  and  untried  code  of  practice  which  I  had  instituted,  the 
foundations  of  higher  study  should  have  been  added  by  Mr. 


6  THE  ART  OF  ENGLAND. 

Richmond,  in  connection  with  the  methods  of  art-education 
recognized  in  the  Academies  of  Europe.  And  although  I  have 
not  yet  been  able  to  consult  with  him  on  the  subject,  I  trust 
that  no  interruption  of  the  courses  of  figure  study,  thus 
established,  may  be  involved  in  the  completion,  for  what  it  is 
worth,  of  the  system  of  subordinate  exercises  in  natural 
history  and  landscape,  indicated  in  the  schools  to  which  at 
present,  for  convenience'  sake,  my  name  is  attached  ;  but 
which,  if  they  indeed  deserve  encouragement,  will,  I  hope, 
receive  it  ultimately,  as  pi*esenting  to  the  beginner  the  first 
aspects  of  art,  in  the  widest,  because  the  humblest,  relation 
to  those  of  divinely  organized  and  animated  Nature. 

The  immediate  task  I  propose  to  myseK  is  to  make  service- 
able, by  all  the  illustration  I  can  give  them,  the  now  un- 
equalled collection  possessed  by  the  Oxford  schools  of  Turner 
drawings  and  sketches,  completed  as  it  has  been  by  the  kind- 
ness of  the  Trustees  of  the  National  Gallery  at  the  intercession 
of  Prince  Leopold  ;  and  furnishing  the  means  of  progress  in 
the  study  of  landscape  such  as  the  great  painter  himself  only 
conceived  the  scope  of  toward  the  closing  period  of  his  life. 
At  the  opening  of  next  term,  I  hope,  with  Mr.  Macdonalds 
assistance,  to  have  drawn  up  a  little  synopsis  of  the  elementary 
exercises  which  in  ray  earlier  books  have  been  recommended 
for  practice  in  Landscape, — a  subject  which,  if  you  look  back 
to  the  courses  of  my  lectures  here,  you  will  find  almost  aflfect- 
edly  neglected,  just  because  it  was  my  personal  province. 
Other  matters  under  deliberation,  till  I  get  them  either  done, 
or  determined,  I  have  no  mind  to  talk  of ;  but  to-day,  and  in 
the  three  lectures  which  I  hope  to  give  in  the  course  of  the 
summer  term,  I  wish  to  render  such  account  as  is  possible  to 
me  of  the  vivid  phase  into  which  I  find  our  English  art  in 
general  to  have  developed  since  first  I  knew  it :  and,  though 
perhaps  not  without  passing  deprecation  of  some  of  its  ten- 
dencies, to  rejoice  with  you  unqualifiedly  in  the  honour  which 
may  most  justly  be  rendered  to  the  leaders,  whether  passed 
away  or  yet  present  Avith  us,  of  England's  Modern  Painters. 

I  may  be  permitted,  in  the  reverence  of  sorrow,  to  speak 
first  of  my  much  loved  friend,  Gabriel  Rossetti.     But,  in  jus- 


REALISTIC  SCHOOLS  OF  PAINTING.  1 

tice,  no  less  than  in  the  kindness  due  to  death,  I  believe  his 
name  should  be  placed  first  on  the  list  of  men,  within  my  own 
range  of  knowledge,  who  have  raised  and  changed  the  spirit 
of  modei'n  Ai't:  raised,  in  absolute  attainment;  changed,  in 
direction  of  temper.  Rossetti  added  to  the  before  accepted 
systems  of  colour  in  painting,  one  based  on  the  principles  of 
manuscript  illumination,  which  pefmits  his  design  to  rival  the 
most  beautiful  qualities  of  painted  glass,  without  losing  either 
the  mystery  or  the  dignity  of  light  and  shade.  And  he  was, 
as  I  believe  it  is  now  generally  admitted,  the  chief  intellectual 
force  in  the  establishment  of  the  modern  romantic  school  in 
England. 

Those  who  are  acquainted  with  my  former  writings  must 
be  aware  that  I  use  the  word  '  romantic '  always  in  a  noble 
sense  ;  meaning  the  habit  of  regarding  the  external  and  real 
world  as  a  singer  of  Romaunts  would  have  regarded  it  in  the 
middle  ages,  and  as  Scott,  Burns,  Byron,  and  Tennyson  have 
regarded  it  in  our  own  times.  But,  as  Eossetti's  colour  was 
based  on  the  former  art  of  illumination,  so  his  romance  was 
based  on  traditions  of  earlier  and  more  sacred  origin  than 
those  which  have  inspired  oiu*  highest  modern  romantic  liter- 
ature. That  literature  has  in  all  cases  remained  strongest  in 
dealing  with  contemporary  fact.  The  genius  of  Tennyson  is 
at  its  highest  in  the  poems  of  '  Maud,'  '  In  Memoriam,'  and  the 
'  Northern  Farmer  ' ;  but  that  of  Rossetti,  as  of  his  greatest 
disciple,  is  seen  only  when  on  pilgrimage  in  Palestine. 

I  trust  that  Mr.  Holman  Hunt  will  not  think  that  in  speak- 
ing of  him  as  Rossetti's  disciple  I  derogate  from  the  respect 
due  to  his  own  noble  and  determined  genius.  In  all  living 
schools  it  chances  often  that  the  disciple  is  greater  than  his 
master  ;  and  it  is  always  the  first  sign  of  a  dominant  and 
splendid  intellect,  that  it  knows  of  whom  to  learn.  Rossetti's 
great  poetical  genius  justified  my  claiming  for  him  total,  and, 
I  believe,  eai'iiest,  originality  in  the  sternly  materialistic, 
though  deeply  reverent  veracity,  with  which  alone,  of  all 
schools  of  painters,  this  brotherhood  of  Englishmen  has  con- 
ceived the  circumstances  of  the  life  of  Christ.  And  if  I  had 
to  choose  one  picture  which  represented  in  purity  and  com- 


8  THE  ART  OF  ENGLAND. 

pleteness,  this  manner  of  their  thought,  it  would  be  Rossetti'a 
*  Virgin  in  the  House  of  St.  John.' 

But  when  Holman  Hunt,  under  such  impressive  influence, 
quitting  -virtuaily  forever  the  range  of  worldly  subjects,  to 
which  belonged  the  pictures  of  Valentine  and  Sylvia,  of 
Claudio  and.  Isabel,  and  of  the  'Awakening  Conscience,'  rose 
into  the  spiritual  passioi*  which  first  expressed  itself  in  the 
'  Light  of  the  AVorld,'  an  instant  and  quite  final  difference 
was  manifested  between  his  method  of  conception,  and  that 
of  his  forerunner.  To  Rossetti,  the  Old  and  New  Testaments 
were  only  the  greatest  poems  he  knew ;  and  he  painted 
scenes  from  them  with  no  more  actual  belief  in  their  relation 
to  the  present  life  and  business  of  men  than  he  gave  also  to  the 
Morte  d'Ai'thur  and  the  Vita  Nuova.  But  to  Holman  Hunt, 
the  story  of  the  New  Testament,  when  once  his  mind  entirely 
fastened  on  it,  became  what  it  was  to  an  old  Puritan,  or  an  old 
Catholic  of  true  blood, — not  merely  a  ReaUty,  not  merely  the 
greatest  of  Realities,  but  the  only  Reality.  So  that  there  is 
nothing  in  the  earth  for  him  any  more  that  does  not  speak  of 
that ; — there  is  no  course  of  thought  nor  force  of  skill  for  him, 
but  it  springs  from  and  ends  in  that. 

So  absolutely,  and  so  involuntarily — I  use  the  word  in  its 
noblest  meaning — is  this  so  with  him,  that  in  all  subjects 
which  fall  short  in  the  religious  element,  his  power  also  is 
shortened,  and  he  does  those  things  worst  which  are  easiest 
to  other  men. 

Beyond  calculation,  greater,  beyond  comparison,  happier, 
than  Rossetti,  in  this  sincerity,  he  is  distinguished  also  from 
liim  by  a  respect  for  physical  and  material  truth  which  ren- 
ders his  work  far  more  generally,  far  more  serenely,  exem- 
plary. 

The  specialty  of  colour-method  which  I  have  signalized  in 
Rossetti,  as  founded  on  missal  painting,  is  in  exactly  that  de- 
gree conventional  and  unreal.  Its  light  fs  not  the  light  of  sun- 
shine itself,  but  of  sunshine  diffused  through  coloured  glass. 
And  in  object-painting  he  not  only  refused,  partly  through  idle- 
ness, parti}'  in  the  absolute  want  of  opportunity  for  the  study 
of  nature  involved  in  his  choice  of  abode  in  a  gaiTet  at  Black- 


REALISTIC  SCHOOLS  OF  PAINTING.  0 

friars, — refused, — I  say,  the  natural  aid  of  pure  landscape  and 
sky,  but  wilfully  perverted  and  lacerated  his  powers  of  concep- 
tion with  Chinese  puzzles  and  Japanese  monsters,  until  his 
foliage  looked  generally  fit  for  nothing  but  a  fire-screen,  and 
his  landscape  distances  like  the  furniture  of  a  Noah's  Ai'k  from 
the  nearest  toy-shop.  Whereas  Holman  Hunt,  in  the  very 
beginning  of  his  career,  fixed  his  mind,  as  a  colourist,  on  the 
true  representation  of  actual  sunshine,  of  growmg  leafage,  of 
living  rock,  of  heavenly  cloud  ;  and  his  long  and  resolute 
exile,  deeply  on  many  grounds  to  be  regretted  both  for  him- 
self and  us,  bound  only  closer  to  his  heart  the  mighty  forms 
and  hues  of  God's  earth  and  sky,  and  the  mysteries  of  its  ap- 
pointed lights  of  the  day  and  of  the  night — opening  on  the 
foam — "Of  desolate  seas,  in — Sacred — lands  forlorn," 

You  have,  for  the  last  ten  or  fifteen  years,  been  accustomed 
to  see  among  the  pictures  principally  characteristic  of  the 
English  school,  a  certain  average  number  of  attentive  studies, 
both  of  sunshine,  and  the  forms  of  lower  nature,  whose  beauty 
is  meant  to  be  seen  by  its  light.  Those  of  IMr.  Brett  may  be 
named  with  especial  praise  ;  and  you  will  probably  many  of 
you  remember  with  j^leasure  the  study  of  cattle  on  a  High- 
land moor  in  the  evening,  by  Mr.  Davis,  which  in  last  year's 
Academy  carried  us  out,  at  the  end  of  the  first  room,  into 
sudden  solitude  among  the  hills.  But  we  forget,  in  the 
enjoyment  of  these  new  and  healthy  pleasures  connected  with 
painting,  to  whom  we  first  owe  them  all.  The  apparently  un- 
impoi'tant  picture  by  Holman  Hunt,  '  The  strayed  Sheep,' 
which — painted  thirty  years  ago — you  may  perhaps  have  seen 
last  autumn  in  the  rooms  of  the  Art  Society  in  Bond  Street,  at 
once  achieved  all  that  can  ever  be  done  in  that  kind  :  it  will 
not  be  surpassed— it  is  little  likely  to  be  rivalled — by  the  best 
efforts  of  the  times  to  come.  It  showed  to  us,  for  the  first 
time  in  the  history  of  art,  the  absolutely  faithful  balances  of 
colour  and  shade  by  which  actual  sunshine  might  be  trans- 
posed into  a  key  in  which  the  harmonies  possible  with  mate- 
rial pigments  should  yet  produce  the  same  impressions  upon 
the  mind  which  were  caused  by  the  light  itself. 

And  remember,  all  previous  work  whatcA^er  had  been  either 


10  THE  ART  OF  ENGLAND. 

subdued  into  narrow  truth,  or  only  by  convention  suggestive 
of  the  greater.  Claude's  sunshine  is  colourless, — only  the 
golden  haze  of  a  quiet  afternoon  ; — so  also  that  of  Cuyp : 
Turner's,  so  bold  in  conventionalism  that  it  is  credible  to 
few  of  you,  and  offensive  to  many.  But  the  pure  natural 
green  and  tufted  gold  of  the  herbage  in  the  hollow  of  that 
little  sea-cliff  must  be  recognized  for  true  merely  by  a  minute's 
pause  of  attention.  Standing  long  before  the  picture,  you 
were  soothed  by  it,  and  raised  into  such  peace  as  you  are  in- 
tended to  find  in  the  glory  and  the  stillness  of  summer,  pos- 
sessing all  things. 

I  cannot  say  of  this  power  of  true  sunshine,  the  least  thing 
that  I  would.  Often  it  is  said  to  me  by  kindly  readers,  that 
I  have  taught  them  to  see  what  they  had  not  seen :  and  yet 
never — in  all  the  many  volumes  of  effort — have  I  been  able  to 
tell  them  my  OAvn  feelings  about  what  I  myself  see.  You  may 
suppose  that  I  have  been  all  this  time  trying  to  express  my 
personal  feelings  about  Nature.  No  ;  not  a  whit.  I  soon 
found  I  could  not,  and  did  not  try  to.  All  my  writing  is  only 
the  effort  to  distinguish  what  is  constantly,  and  to  all  men, 
loveable,  and  if  they  will  look,  lovely,  from  what  is  vile,  or 
empty, — or,  to  well  trained  eyes  and  heai'ts,  loathsome  ;  but 
you  will  never  find  me  talking  about  what  /  feel,  or  what  1 
think.  I  know  that  fresh  air  is  more  wholesome  than  fog, 
and  that  blue  sky  is  more  beautiful  than  black,  to  people  hap- 
pily born  and  bred.  But  you  will  never  find,  except  of  late, 
and  for  special  reasons,  effort  of  mine  to  say  how  I  am  myself 
oppressed  or  comforted  by  such  things. 

This  is  partly  my  steady  principle,  and  partly  it  is  inca- 
pacity. Forms  of  personal  feeling  in  this  kind  can  only  be 
expressed  in  poetry  ;  and  I  am  not  a  poet,  nor  in  any  articu- 
late manner  could  I  the  least  explain  to  you  what  a  deep 
element  of  life,  for  me,  is  in  the  sight  merely  of  pure  sunshine 
on  a  bank  of  living  grass. 

More  than  any  pathetic  music, — yet  I  love  music, — more 
than  any  artful  colour — and  yet  I  love  colour, — more  than 
other  merely  material  thing  visible  to  these  old  eyes,  in  earth 
or  sky.     It  is  so,  I  believe,  with  many  of  you  also, — with  mant 


REALISTIC  SCHOOLS  OF  PAINTING.  11 

more  than  know  it  of  themselves  ;  and  this  picture,  were  it 
only  the  first  that  cast  true  sunshine  on  the  grass,  would  have 
been  in  that  virtue  sacred  :  but  in  its  deeper  meaning,  it  is, 
actually,  the  first  of  Hunt's  sacred  paintings — the  first  in 
which,  for  those  who  can  read,  the  substance  of  the  conviction 
and  the  teaching  of  his  after  life  is  written,  though  not  dis- 
tinctly told  till  afterwards  in  the  symbolic  picture  of  '  The 
Scapegoat.'  "  All  we  like  sheep  have  gone  astray,  we  have 
tui-ned  every  one  to  his  own  way,  and  the  Lord  hath  laid  on 
Him  the  iniquity  of  us  all." 

None  of  you,  who  have  the  least  acquaintance  with  the 
general  tenor  of  my  own  teaching,  will  suspect  in  me  any  bias 
towards  the  doctrine  of  vicarious  Sacrifice,  as  it  is  taught  by 
the  modern  Evangelical  Preacher.  But  the  great  mj'stery  of 
the  idea  of  Sacrifice  itself,  which  has  been  manifested  as  one 
united  and  solemn  instinct  by  all  thoughtful  and  affectionate 
races,  since  the  wide  world  became  peopled,  is  founded  on  the 
secret  truth  of  benevolent  energy  which  all  men  who  have 
tried  to  gain  it  have  learned — that  you  cannot  save  men  from 
death  but  by  facing  it  for  them,  nor  from  sin  but  by  resisting 
it  for  them.  It  is,  on  the  contrary,  the  favourite,  and  the 
worst  falsehood  of  modern  infidel  morality',  that  you  serve 
your  fellow-creatures  best  by  getting  a  percentage  out  of 
their  pockets,  and  wiU  best  provide  for  starving  multitudes 
by  regaling  yourselves.  Some  day  or  other — probably  now 
very  soon — too  probably  by  heavy  afflictions  of  the  State,  Ave 
shall  be  taught  that  it  is  not  so ;  and  that  all  the  true  good 
and  glory  even  of  this  world — not  to  speak  of  any  that  is  to 
come,  must  be  bought  still,  as  it  always  has  been,  with  our 
toil,  and  with  our  tears.  That  is  the  final  doctrine,  the  inevi- 
table one,  not  of  Christianity  only,  but  of  all  Heroic  Faith 
and  Heroic  Being ;  and  the  first  trial  questions  of  a  true  soul 
to  itself  must  always  be, — Have  I  a  rehgion,  have  I  a  country, 
have  I  a  love,  that  I  am  ready  to  die  for  ? 

That  is  the  Doctrine  of  Sacrifice  ;  the  faith  in  which  Isaac 
was  bound,  in  which  Iphigenia  died,  in  which  the  great  army 
of  martyrs  have  suffered,  and  by  which  all  victories  in  the 
cause  of  justice  and  happiness  have  been  gained  by  the  men 


12  THE  ART  OF  ENGLAND. 

wbo  became  more  than  conquerors,  through  Him  that  loved 
them. 

And  yet  there  is  a  deeper  and  stranger  sacrifice  in  the  sys- 
tem of  this  creation  than  theirs.  To  resolute  self-denial,  and 
to  adopted  and  accepted  suffering,  the  reward  is  in  the  con- 
science sure,  and  in  the  gradual  advance  and  predominance  of 
good,  practically  and  to  all  men  visible.  But  what  shall  we 
say  of  involuntary  suffering, — the  misery  of  the  poor  and  the 
simple,  the  agony  of  the  helpless  and  the  innocent,  and  the 
perishing,  as  it  seems,  in  vain,  and  the  mother  weeping  for 
the  children  of  whom  she  knows  only  that  they  are  not  ? 

I  saw  it  lately  given  as  one  of  the  incontrovertible  discov- 
eries of  modern  science,  that  all  our  present  enjoyments  were 
only  the  outcome  of  an  infinite  series  of  pain.  I  do  not  know 
how  far  the  statement  fairly  represented — but  it  announced  as 
incapable  of  contradiction — this  melancholy  theory.  If  such 
a  doctrine  is  indeed  abroad  among  you,  let  me  comfort  some, 
at  least,  with  its  absolute  denial.  That  in  past  seons,  the  pain 
suffered  throughout  the  living  universe  passes  calculation,  is 
true  ;  that  it  is  infinite,  is  imtrue  ;  and  that  all  our  enjoy- 
ments are  based  on  it,  contemptibly  untrue.  For,  on  the 
other  hand,  the  pleasure  felt  through  the  living  universe  dur- 
ing past  ages  is  incalculable  also,  and  in  higher  magnitudes. 
Our  own  talents,  enjoyments,  and  prosperities,  ai-e  the  out- 
come of  that  happiness  with  its  energies,  not  of  the  death 
that  ended  them.  So  manifestly  is  this  so,  that  all  men  of 
hitlierto  widest  reach  in  natiu'al  science  and  logical  thought 
have  been  led  to  fix  their  minds  onl}'  on  the  innumerable 
paths  of  pleasure,  and  ideals  of  beauty,  which  are  traced  on 
the  scroll  of  creation,  and  are  no  more  tempted  to  arraign  as 
unjust,  or  even  lament  as  unfortunate,  the  essential  equivalent 
of  sorrow,  than  in  the  seven-fold  glories  of  sunrise  to  depre- 
cate the  mingling  of  shadow  with  its  light. 

This,  however,  though  it  has  always  been  the  sentiment  of 
the  healthiest  natural  philosophy,  has  never,  as  you  well  know, 
been  the  doctrine  of  Christianity,  That  religion,  as  it  comes 
to  us  with  the  promise  of  a  kingdom  in  which  there  shall  be 
no  more  Death,  neither  sorrow  nor  crving,  so  it  has  always 


REALISTIC  SCHOOLS  OF  PAINTING.  13 

brought  with  it  the  confession  of  calamity  to  be  at  present  in 
patience  of  mvsteiy  endured  ;  and  not  by  us  only,  but  ap- 
parently for  our  sakes,  by  the  lower  creatures,  for  whom  it 
is  inconceivable  that  any  good  should  be  the  final  goal  of  ilL 
Toward  these,  the  one  lesson  we  have  to  learn  is  that  of  pity. 
For  all  human  loss  and  pain,  there  is  no  comfort,  no  interpre- 
tation worth  a  thought,  except  only  in  the  doctrine  of  the 
Resurrection  ; — of  which  doctrine,  remember,  it  is  an  immut- 
able historical  fact  that  all  the  beautiful  work,  and  all  the 
happy  existence  of  mankind,  hitherto,  has  depended  on,  or 
consisted  in,  the  hope  of  it. 

The  picture  of  which  I  came  to-day  chiefly  to  speak,  as  a 
symbol  of  that  doctiiue,  was  incomplete  when  I  saw  it,  and  is 
so  still  ;  but  enough  was  done  to  constitute  it  the  most  im- 
poi*tant  work  of  Hunt's  life,  as  yet ;  and  if  health  is  granted 
to  him  for  its  completion,  it  will,  both  in  reality  and  in  esteem, 
be  the  gi-eatest  religious  painting  of  our  time. 

You  know  that  in  the  most  beautiful  former  conceptions  of 
the  Flight  into  Egypt,  the  Holy  Family  were  always  repre- 
sented as  watched  over,  and  ministered  to,  by  attendant  an- 
gels. But  only  the  safety  and  peace  of  the  Divine  Child  and 
its  mother  are  thought  of.  No  sadness  or  wonder  of  medita- 
tion returns  to  the  desolate  homes  of  Bethlehem. 

But  in  this  English  picture  all  the  story  of  the  escape,  as 
of  the  flight,  is  told,  in  fulness  of  peace,  and  yet  of  compassion. 
The  ti'avel  is  in  the  dead  of  the  night,  the  way  unseen  and 
unknown  ; — but,  partly  stooping  from  the  starlight,  and  partly 
floating  on  the  desert  mirage,  move,  Avith  the  Holy  Family  the 
glorified  souls  of  the  Innocents.  Clear  in  celestial  light,  and 
gathered  into  child-garlands  of  gladness,  they  look  to  the 
Child  in  whom  they  live,  and  yet,  for  them  to  die.  "Waters 
of  the  River  of  Life  flow  before  on  the  sands :  the  Christ 
stretches  out  His  arms  to  the  nearest  of  them  ; — leaning  from 
His  mother's  breast. 

To  how  many  bereaved  households  may  not  this  happy 
vision  of  conquered  death  bring  in  the  future,  days  of  peace ! 

I  do  not  care  to  speak  of  other  virtues  in  this  design  than 
those  of  its  majestic  thought, — but  you  may  well  imagine 


14  THE  ART  OF  ENGLAND. 

for  yourselves  how  the  painter's  quite  separate  and,  in  ita 
skill,  better  than  magical,  power  of  giving  effects  of  intense 
light,  has  aided  the  effort  of  his  imagination,  while  the  pas- 
sion of  his  subject  has  developed  in  him  a  swift  grace  of  in- 
vention which  for  my  own  part  I  never  recognized  in  his  de- 
sign till  now.  I  can  say  with  deliberation  that  none  even  ot 
the  most  animated  groups  and  processions  of  children  which 
constitute  the  loveliest  sculpture  of  the  Kobbias  and  Dona- 
tello,  can 'more  than  rival  the  freedom  and  felicity  of  motion, 
or  the  subtlety  of  harmonious  line,  in  the  happy  wreath  of 
these  angel-children. 

Of  this  picture  I  came  to-day  chiefly  to  speak,  nor  will  I 
disturb  the  poor  impression  which  my  words  can  give  you  of 
it  by  any  immediate  reference  to  other  pictures  by  our  lead- 
ing masters.  But  it  is  not,  of  course,  among  these  men  of 
splendid  and  isolated  imagination  that  you  can  learn  the 
modes  of  regarding  common  and  familiar  nature  which  you 
must  be  content  to  be  governed  by — in  early  lessons.  I 
count  myself  fortunate,  in  renewing  ,my  effort  to  systematize 
these,  that  I  can  now  place  in  the  schools,  or  at  least  lend, 
first  one  and  then  another — some  exemplary  drawings  hy 
young  people — youths  and  girls  of  your  own  age — clever 
ones,  yes, — but  not  cleverer  than  a  great  many  of  you  : — emi- 
nent only,  among  the  young  people  of  the  present  day  whom 
I  chance  to  know,  in  being  extremely  old-fashioned  ; — and, — 
don't  be  spiteful  when  I  say  so, — but  really  they  all  are,  all  the 
four  of  them — two  lads  and  two  lassies — quite  provokingly 
good. 

Lads,  not  exactly  lads  perhaps — one  of  them  is  already 
master  of  the  works  in  the  ducal  palace  at  Venice  ;  lassies,  to 
an  old  man  of  sixty-four,  who  is  vexed  to  be  beaten  by  them 
in  his  own  business — a  little  older,  perhaps,  than  most  of  the 
lassies  here,  but  still  brightly  young  ;  and,  mind  you,  not  ar- 
tists, but  drawing  in  the  joy  of  their  hearts — and  the  builder 
at  Venice  only  in  his  play-time — yet,  I  believe  you  will  find 
these,  and  the  other  drawings  I  speak  of,  more  helpful,  and 
as  I  just  said,  exemplary,  than  any  I  have  yet  been  able  t« 
lind  for  you  ;  and  of  these,  little  stories  are  to  be  told,  whicli 


REALISTIC  SCHOOLS  OF  PAINTING.  15 

bear  much  on  all  thfit  I  have  been  most  earnestly  trying  to 
make  you  assured  of,  both  in  art  and  in  real  life. 

Let  me,  however,  before  going  farther,  say,  to  relieve  your 
minds  from  unhappil}'^  too  well-grounded  panic,  that  I  have 
no  intention  of  making  my  art  lectures  any  more  one-half 
sermons.  All  \\\e  pieces  of  theological  or  other  grave  talk 
which  seemed  to  me  a  necessary  part  of  my  teaching  here, 
have  been  already  spoken,  and  printed  ;  and  are,  I  only  fear" 
at  too  great  length,  legible.  Nor  have  I  any  more  either 
strength  or  passion  to  spare  in  matters  capable  of  dispute.  I 
must  in  silent  resignation  leave  all  of  you  who  are  led  by  your 
fancy,  or  induced  by  the  fashion  of  the  time,  to  follow,  with- 
out remonstrance  on  my  part,  those  modes  of  studying  organic 
beauty  for  which  preparation  must  be  made  by  depiiving  the 
animal  under  investigation  first  of  its  soul  within,  and  secondly 
of  its  skin  without.  But  it  chances  to-day,  that  the  merely 
literal  histories  of  the  di'awings  which  I  bring  with  me  to 
show  you  or  to  lend,  do  carry  with  them  certain  evidences  of 
the  practical  force  of  religious  feeling  on  the  imagination, 
both  in  aiiists  and  races,  such  as  I  cannot,  if  I  would,  over- 
look, and  such  as  I  think  you  will  yourselves,  even  those  who 
have  least  sympathy  with  them,  not  without  admiration  rec- 
ognise. 

For  a  long  time  I  used  to  say,  in  all  my  elementary  books, 
that,  except  in  a  graceful  and  minor  way,  women  could  not 
paint  or  draw.  I  am  beginning,  lately,  to  bow  myself  to  the 
much  more  delightful  conviction  that  nobody  else  can.  How 
this  very  serious  change  of  mind  was  fii'st  induced  in  me  it 
is,  if  not  necessary,  I  hope  pardonable,  to  delay  you  by  tell- 
ing. 

When  I  was  at  Venice  in  1876 — it  is  almost  the  only  thing 
that  makes  me  now  content  in  having  gone  there, — two  Eng- 
lish ladies,  mother  and  daughter,  were  staying  at  the  same 
hotel,  the  Europa.  One  day  the  mother  sent  me  a  pretty 
little  note  asking  if  1  would  look  at  the  young  lady's  draw- 
ings. On  my  somewhat  sulky  permission,  a  few  were  sent,  in 
which  I  saw  thei'e  was  extremely  right-minded  and  careful 
work,  almost  totally  without  knowledge.     I  sent  back  a  re- 


16  THE  ART  OF  ENGLAND. 

quest  that  the  young  lady  might  be  allowed  to  come  out 
sketching  with  me.  I  took  her  over  into  the  pretty  cloister 
of  the  church  of  La  Salute,  and  set  her,  for  the  first  time  in 
her  life,  to  draw  a  little  piece  of  gray  marble  with  the  sun 
upon  it,  rightly.  She  may  have  had  one  lesson  after  that—  ■ 
she  may  have  had  two  ;  the  three,  if  there  were  three,  seem 
to  me,i  now,  to  have  been  only  one  !  She  seemed  to  learn 
everything  the  instant  she  was  shown  it — and  ever  so  much 
more  than  she  was  taught  Next  year  she  went  away  to 
Norway,  on  one  of  these  frolics  which  are  now-a-days  neces- 
sary to  girl-existence  ;  and  brought  back  a  little  pocket-book, 
which  she  thought  nothing  of,  and  which  I  begged  of  her  : 
and  have  framed  half  a  dozen  leaves  of  it  (for  a  loan  to  you, 
only,  mind, )  till  you  have  enough  copied  them. 

Of  the  minute  drawings  themselves,  I  need  not  tell  you — 
for  you  will  in  examining  them,  beyond  all  teUing,  feel,  that 
they  are  exactly  what  we  should  all  like  to  be  able  to  do  ;  and 
in  the  plainest  and  frankest  manner  show  us  how  to  do  it — 
or,  more  modestly  speaking,  how,  if  heaven  help  us,  it  can  be 
done.  They  can  only  be  seen,  as  you  see  Bewick  vignettes, 
with  a  magnifying  glass,  and  they  are  patterns  to  you,  there- 
fore, only  of  pocket-book  work ;  but  what  skill  is  more  pre- 
cious to  a  traveller  than  that  of  minute,  instantaneous,  and 
unerring  record  of  the  things  that  are  precisely  best  ?  For  in 
this,  the  vignettes  upon  these  leaves  differ,  widely  as  the  arc 
of  heaven,  from  the  bitter  truths  of  Bewick.  Nothing  is  re- 
corded here  but  what  is  lovely  and  honourable  :  how  much 
there  is  of  both  in  the  peasant  life  of  Norway,  many  an  Eng- 
lish traveller  has  recognised  ;  but  not  always  looking  for  the 
cause  or  enduring  the  conclusion,  that  its  serene  beauty,  its 
hospitable  patriotism,  its  peaceful  courage,  and  its  happy 
virtue,  were  dependent  on  facts  little  resembling  our  modern 
English  institutions  ; — namely,  that  the  Norwegian  peasant 
"  is  a  free  man  on  the  scanty  bit  of  ground  which  he  has  iu- 
hex-ited  from  his  forefathers  ;  that  the  Bible  is  to  be  found  in 
every  hut ;  that  the  schoolmaster  wanders  from  farm  to  farm  ; 
that  no  Norwegian  is  confirmed  who  does  not  know  how  to 
read  ;  and  no  Norwegian  is  allowed   to  man-y  who  has  not 


REALISTIC  SCHOOLS  OF  PAINTING.  17 

been  confirmed."  I  quote  straightforwardly,  (missing  only 
some  talk  of  Parliaments  ;  hut  not  caring  otherwise  how  far 
the  sentences  are  with  my  own  notions,  or  against,)  from  Di'. 
Hartwig's  collected  descriptions  of  the  Polar  world.  I  am 
not  myself  altogether  sure  of  the  wisdom  of  teaching  everj'- 
body  to  read  :  but  might  be  otherwise  persuaded  if  here,  as  in. 
Norway,  every  town  had  its  public  library,  "  while  in  many 
districts  the  peasants  annually  contribute  a  dollar  towards  a 
collection  of  books,  which,  under  the  care  of  the  priest,  are 
lent  out  to  all  comers." 

I  observe  that  the  word  '  priest '  has  of  late  become  more 
than  ever  offensive  to  the  popular  English  mind  ;  and  pause 
only  to  say  that  in  whatever  capacity,  or  authority,  the  essen- 
tial function  of  a  public  librarian  must  in  eveiy  decent  and 
rational  countiy  be  educational ;  and  consist  in  the  choosing, 
for  the  public,  books  authoritatively  or  essentially  true,  free 
from  vain  speculation  or  evil  suggestion  :  and  in  noble  history 
or  cheerful  fancy,  to  the  utmost,  entertaining. 

One  kind  of  periodical  literature,  it  seems  to  me  as  I  study 
these  drawings,  must  at  all  events  in  Norway  be  beautifully 
forbidden, — the  "Journal  des  Modes."  You  will  see  evidence 
here  that  the  bright  fancying  alike  of  maidens'  and  matrons' 
dress,  capable  of  prettiest  variation  in  its  ornament,  is  yet 
ancestral  in  its  form,  and  the  white  caps,  in  their  daOy  purity, 
have  the  untroubled  constancy,  of  the  seashell  and  the  snow. 

Next  to  these  illustrations  of  Norwegian  economy',  I  have 
brought  you  a  drawing  of  deeper  and  less  imitable  power  :  it 
is  by  a  girl  of  quit«  peculiar  gift,  whose  life  has  hitherto  been 
spent  in  quiet  and  unassuming  devotion  to  her  art,  and  to  its 
subjects.  I  would  fain  have  said,  an  English  girl,  but  all  my 
prejudices  have  lately  had  the  axe  laid  to  their  roots  one  by 
one, — she  is  an  American  !  But  for  twenty  yeai'S  she  has  lived 
with  her  mother  among  the  peasants  of  Tuscany — under  their 
olive  avenues  in  summer — receiving  them,  as  they  choose  to 
come  to  chat  with  her,  in  her  little  room  by  Santa  Iklaria  No- 
vella in  Florence  during  winter.  They  come  to  her  as  their 
loving  guide,  and  friend,  and  sister  in  all  their  work,  and 
pleasiu'e,  and — suffering.     I  lean  on  the  last  word. 


I 


18  THE  ART  OF  ENGLAND. 

For  those  of  you  who  have  entered  into  the  heart  of  modem 
Italy  know  that  there  is  probably  no  more  oppressed,  no  more 
afflicted  order  of  gracious  and  blessed  creatures— God's  own 
poor,  who  have  not  yet  received  their  consolation,  than  the 
mountain  peasantry  of  Tuscany  and  Romagua.  What  their 
minds  are,  and  what  their  state,  and  what  their  treatment, 
those  who  do  not  know  Italy  may  best  leara,  if  they  can  bear 
the  grief  of  learning  it,  from  Ouida's  photographic  story  of 
'  A  Village  Commune ' ;  yet  amidst  all  this,  the  sweetness  of 
their  natural  character  is  undisturbed,  their  ancestral  religious 
faith  unshaken — their  purity  and  simplicity  of  household  life 
uncorrupted.  They  may  perish,  by  our  neglect  or  our  cruelty, 
but  they  cannot  be  degraded.  Among  them,  as  I  have  told 
you,  this  American  girl  has  lived  — from  her  youth  up,  with 
her  (now  widowed)  mothei*,  who  is  as  eagerly,  and  which  is 
the  chief  matter,  as  sympathizingly  benevolent  as  herself. 
The  peculiar  art  gift  of  the  younger  lady  is  rooted  in  this 
sympath}',  the  gift  of  truest  expression  of  feelings  serene  in 
their  rightness  ;  and  a  love  of  beauty — divided  almost  between 
the  peasants  and  the  flowers  that  live  round  Santa  Maria  del 
Fiore.  This  power  she  has  trained  by  its  limitation,  severe, 
and  in  my  experience  unexampled,  to  work  in  light  and  sliade 
only,  with  the  pure  pen  line  :  but  the  total  strength  of  her 
intellect  and  fancy  being  concentrated  in  this  engraver's 
method,  it  expresses  of  every  subject  what  she  loves  best,  in 
simplicity  undebased  by  any  accessory  of  minor  emotion. 

She  has  thus  drawn,  in  faithfulest  portraiture  of  these 
peasant  Florentines,  the  loveliness  of  the  young  and  the 
majesty  of  the  aged  :  she  has  listened  to  their  legends,  writ- 
ten down  their  sacred  songs  ;  and  illustrated,  with  the  sanc- 
tities of  mortal  life,  their  traditions  of  immortality, 

I  have  brought  you  only  one  drawing  to-day  ;  in  the  spring 
I  trust  you  shall  have  many, — but  this  is  enough,  just  now. 
It  is  drawn  from  memory  only,  but  the  fond  memoiy  which 
is  as  sure  as  sight — it  is  the  last  sleep  from  which  she  waked 
on  this  earth,  of  a  young  Florentine  girl,  who  had  brought 
heaven  down  to  earth,  as  truly  as  ever  saint  of  old,  while  she 
lived,  and  of  whom  even  I,  who  never  saw  her7<eannot  behev« 


REALISTIC  SCHOOLS   OF  PAINTING.  V^ 

that  she  is  dead.  Her  friend,  who  drew  this  memorial  of  her, 
wrote  also  the  short  story  of  her  life,  which  I  trust  you  will 
soon  be  able  to  read. 

Of  this,  and  of  the  rest  of  these  drawings,  I  have  much  to 
say  to  you  ;  but  this  first  and  last, -^ that  they  are  representa- 
tions of  beautiful  human  nature,  such  as  could  only  have  been 
found  among  j^eople  living  in  the  pure  Christian  faith — such 
as  it  was,  and  is,  since  the  twelfth  century  ;  and  that  although, 
as  I  said,  I  have  I'eturned  to  Oxford  only  to  teach  you  techni- 
cal things,  this  truth  must  close  the  first  words,  as  it  must  be 
the  sum  of  all  that  I  may  be  permitted  to  speak  to  you, — that 
the  history  of  the  art  of  the  Greeks  is  the  eulogy  of  their 
virtues  ;  and  the  history  of  Art  after  the  fall  of  Greece,  is  that 
of  the  Obedience  and  the  Faith  of  Christianity. 

There  are  two  points  of  practical  importance  which  I  must 
leave  under  your  consideration.  I  am  confirmed  by  Mr.  Mac- 
donald  in  my  feeling  that  some  kind  of  accurately  testing  ex- 
amination is  necessary  to  give  consistency'  and  efficiency  to 
the  present  drawing-school.  I  have  therefore  detei-mined  to 
give  simple  certificates  of  merit,  amiually,  to  the  students  who 
have  both  passed  through  the  required  course,  and  at  the  end 
of  three  years  have  produced  work  satisfactory  to  Mr.  Mac- 
donald  and  myself.  After  Easter,  I  will  at  once  look  over  such 
drawings  as  Mr.  Macdonald  thinks  well  to  show  me,  by  stu- 
dents who  have  till  now  complied  with  the  rules  of  the  school ; 
and  give  certificates  accordingly  ; — henceforward,  if  my  health 
is  spared,  annually  :  and  I  trust  that  the  advantage  of  this 
simple  and  uncompetitive  examination  will  be  felt  by  succeed- 
ing holders  of  the  Slade  Professorship,  and  in  time  commend 
itself  enough  to  be  held  as  a  part  of  the  examination  system 
of  the  Universit}'. 

Lnxcompetitlve,  always.  The  drawing  certificate  will  imply 
no  compliment,  and  convey  no  distinction.  It  will  mean 
merely  that  the  student  who  obtains  it  knows  perspective, 
Avith  the  scientific  laws  of  light  and  colour  in  illustrating  form, 
and  has  attained  a  certain  proficiency  in  the  management  of 
the  pencil. 

The  second  point  is  of  more  importance  and  more  difficulty. 


20  ,   THE  ART  OF  ENGLAND. 

I  now  see  my  way  to  making  the  collection  of  examples  in 
the  schools,  quite  representative  of  all  that  such  a  series  ought 
to  be.  But  there  is  extreme  difficulty  in  finding  any  books 
that  can  be  put  into  the  hands  of  the  home  student  which 
may  supply  the  place  of  an  academy.  I  do  not  mean  merely 
as  lessons  in  drawing,  but  in  the  formation  of  taste,  which, 
when  we  analyse  it,  means  of  course  merely  the  right  direction 
of  feeling, 

I  hope  that  in  many  EngHsh  households  there  may  be  found 
already — I  trust  some  day  there  may  be  found  wherever  there 
are  children  who  can  enjoy  them,  and  especially  in  country 
village  schools — the  three  series  of  designs  by  Ludwig  Rich- 
ter,  in  illustration  of  the  Lord's  Prayer,  of  the  Sunday,  and 
of  the  Seasons.  Perfect  as  types  of  easy  line  drawing,  exqui- 
site in  ornamental  composition,  and  refined  to  the  utmost  in 
ideal  grace,  they  represent  all  that  is  simplest,  purest,  and 
happiest  in  human  life,  all  that  is  most  strengthening  and 
comforting  in  nature  and  religion.  They  are  enough,  in 
themselves,  to  show  that  whatever  its  errors,  whatever  its 
backslidings,  this  century  of  ours  has  in  its  heart  understood 
and  fostered,  more  than  any  former  one,  the  joys  of  family 
affection,  and  of  household  piety. 

For  the  former  fairy  of  the  woods,  Richter  has  brought  to 
you  the  angel  on  the  threshold  ;  for  the  former  promises  of 
distant  Paradise,  he  has  brought  the  perpetual  blessing, 
"  God  be  with  you  "  :  amidst  all  the  turmoil  and  speeding  to 
and  fro,  and  wandering  of  heart  and  eyes  which  perplex  our 
paths,  and  betray  our  wills,  he  speaks  to  us  continuous  me- 
morial of  the  message — "  My  Peace  I  leave  with  you." 


LECTURE  IL 


Mythic  Schools  of  Painting. 

E.    BUKNE-JONES    AND   G.    F.    WATTS. 

It  is  my  purpose,  in  the  lectures  I  may  be  permitted  hence- 
forward to  give  in  Oxford,  so  to  arrange  them  as  to  dispense 
with  notes  in  subsequent  printing  ;  and,  if  I  am  forced  for 


MTTniC  SCHOOLS  OF  PAINTING.  21 

shortness,  or  in  oversight,  to  leave  anything  insufficiently  ex- 
plained, to  complete  the  passage  in  the  next  following  lecture, 
or  in  any  one,  though  after  an  intei-val,  which  may  naturally 
recur  to  the  subject.  Thus  the  printed  text  will  always  be 
simply  what  I  have  read,  or  said  ;  and  the  lectures  will  be 
more  closely  and  easily  connected  than  if  I  went  always  on 
without  the  care  of  explanatory  retrospect. 

It  may  have  been  observed,  and  perhajDS  with  question  of 
my  meaning,  by  some  readers,  that  in  my  last  lecture  I  used 
the  word  "  materialistic  "  of  the  method  of  conception  com- 
mon to  Kossetti  and  Hunt,  with  the  greater  number  of  their 
scholars.  I  used  that  expi*ession  to  denote  their  peculiar 
tendency  to  feel  and  illustrate  the  relation  of  spiritual  creat- 
ures to  the  substance  and  conditions  of  the  visible  world ; 
more  especiall}',  the  familiar,  or  in  a  sort  humiliating,  acci- 
dents or  employments  of  their  earthly  life  ; — as,  for  instance, 
in  the  pictiu-e  I  referred  to,  Kossetti's  Virgin  in  the  house  of 
St.  John,  the  Madonna's  being  drawn  at  the  moment  when 
she  rises  to  trim  their  lamp.  In  many  such  cases,  the  inci- 
dents may  of  course  have  symbolical  meaning,  as,  in  the  un- 
finished drawing  by  Rossetti  of  the  Passover,  which  I  have  so 
long  left  with  you,  the  boy  Christ  is  watching  the  blood  struck 
on  the  doorpost  ; — but  the  peculiar  value  and  character  of  the 
treatment  is  in  what  I  called  its  material  veracity,  compelling 
the  spectator's  belief,  if  he  have  the  instinct  of  belief  in  him 
at  all,  in  the  thing's  having  verily  happened  ;  and  not  being  a 
mere  poetical  fancy.  If  the  spectator,  on  the  contrary,  have 
no  capacity  of  belief  in  him,  the  use  of  such  representation  is 
in  making  him  detect  his  own  incredulity,  aud  recognise  that 
in  his  former  dreamy  acceptance  of  the  story,  he  had  never 
really  asked  himself  whether  these  things  were  so. 

Thus,  in  what  I  believe  to  have  been  in  actual  time  the 
first— though  I  do  not  claim  for  it  the  slightest  lead  in  sug- 
gestive influence,  yet  the  first  dated  example  of  such  literal 
and  close  realization — my  own  endeavour  in  the  third  volume 
of  '  Modei-n  Painters '  to  describe  the  incidents  preceding  the 
charge  to  Peter,  I  have  fastened  on  the  words,  "  He  girt 
his  fisher's  coat  about  him,  and  did  cast  himself  into  the  sea," 


'r-i  THE  ART  OB'  ENGLAND. 

foUoAving  them  out,  with,  "  Then,  to  Peter,  all  wet  and  shiver- 
ing, staring  at  Christ  in  the  nan ;  "  not  in  the  least  sujjposing 
or  intending  any  symbolism  either  in  the  coat,  or  the  drij^ping 
water,  or  the  morning  sunshine  ;  but  merely  and  straitly 
striving  to  put  the  facts  before  the  reader's  eyes  as  positively 
as  if  he  had  seen  the  thing  come  to  pass  on  Brighton  beach, 
and  an  English  fisherman  dash  through  the  surf  of  it  to  the 
feet  of  his  captain, — once  dead,  and  now  with  the  morning 
brightness  on  his  face. 

And  you  will  observe  farther,  that  this  way  of  thinking 
about  a  thing  compels,  with  a  painter,  also  a  certain  way  of 
painting  it.  I  do  not  mean  a  necessarily  close  or  minute  way, 
but  a  necessarily  complete,  substantial,  and  emphatic  one. 
The  thing  may  be  expressed  vdth  a  few  fierce  dashes  of  the 
pencil ;  but  it  will  be  wholly  and  bodily  there  ;  it  may  be  in 
the  broadest  and  simplest  terms,  but  nothing  will  be  hazy  or 
hidden,  nothing  clouded  round,  or  melted  away  :  and  all  that 
is  told  will  be  as  explanatory  and  lucid  as  may  be — as  of  a 
thing  examined  in  daylight,  not  dreamt  of  in  moonlight. 

I  must  delay  you  a  little,  though  perhaps  tiresomely,  to 
make  myself  well  understood  on  this  point ;  for  the  first  cele- 
brated pictures  of  the  pre-Raphaehte  school  having  been  ex- 
tremely minute  in  finish,  you  mij-ht  easily  take  minuteness  for 
a  specialty  of  the  style, — but  it  is  not  so  in  the  least.  Minute- 
ness I  do  somewhat  claim,  for  a  quality  insisted  upon  by 
myself,  and  required  in  the  work  of  my  own  pupils  ;  it  is — at 
least  in  landscape — Turnerian  and  Ruskinian — not  pre-Ra- 
phaelite  at  all : — the  pre-Raphaelism  common  to  us  all  is  in 
the  frankness  and  honesty  of  the  touch,  not  in  its  dimensions. 

I  think  I  may,  once  for  all,  explain  this  to  you,  and  con- 
vince you  of  it,  by  asking  you,  when  you  next  go  up  to  Lon- 
don, to  look  at  a  sketch  by  Vandyke  in  the  National  Gallery, 
No.  680,  purporting  to  represent  this  very  scene  I  have  been 
speaking  of, — the  miraculous  draught  of  fishes.  It  is  one  of 
the  too  numerous  brown  sketches  in  the  manner  of  the  Flem- 
ish School,  which  seem  to  me  always  rather  done  for  the  sake 
of  wiping  the  brush  clean  than  of  painting  anything.  There 
is  no  colour  in  it,  and  no  light  and  shade  ; — but  a  certain 


MTrnic  SCHOOLS  of  fainttxg.  23 

quantity  of  bitumen  is  rubbed  about  so  as  to  slip  more  or  less 
greasily  into  the  sliajDe  of  figures  ;  and  one  of  St.  John's  (or 
St.  James's)  legs  is  suddenly  terminated  by  a  wriggle  of  white 
across  it,  to  signify  that  he  is  standing  in  the  sea.  Now  that 
was  the  kind  of  work  of  the  Dutch  School,  which  I  spent  so 
many  images  in  vituperating  throughout  the  first  volume  of 
'  Modern  Painters  ' — pages,  seemingly,  vain  to  this  day  ;  for 
still,  the  brown  daubs  are  hung  in  the  best  rooms  of  the  Na- 
tional Gallery,  and  the  loveliest  Turner  drawings  are  nailed 
to  the  wall  of  its  cellar,— and  might  as  well  be  buried  at  Pom- 
peii for  any  use  they  are  to  the  British  public  ; — but,  vain  or 
eifectless  as  the  said  chapters  may  be,  they  are  altogether  true 
in  that  firm  statement,  that  these  brown  flourishes  of  the 
Dutch  brush  are  by  men  who  lived,  virtually,  the  gentle,  at 
court, — the  simple,  in  the  pothouse  ;  and  could  indeed  paint 
according  to  their  habitation,  a  nobleman  or  a  boor,  but  were 
not  only  incapable  of  conceiving,  but  wholly  unwishful  to  con- 
ceive, anything,  natural  or  supernatural,  beyond  the  precincts 
of  the  Presence  and  the  tavern.  So  that  they  especially  failed 
in  giving  the  life  and  beauty  of  little  things  in  lower  nature  ; 
and  if,  by  good  hap,  they  may  sometimes  more  or  less  succeed 
in  painting  St.  Peter  the  Fisher's  face,  never  by  any  chance 
reaUze  for  you  the  green  wave  dashing  over  his  feet. 

Now,  therefore,  understand  of  the  opposite  so  called  '  Pre- 
Raphaelite,'  and,  much  more,  pre-Rubensite,  society,  that  its 
primary  virtue  is  the  trying  to  conceive  things  as  they  are, 
and  thinking  and  feeling  them  quite  out : — believing  joj-fully 
if  we  may,  doubting  bravely,  if  we  must, — but  never  mystify- 
ing, or  shrinking  from,  or  choosing  for  argument's  sake,  this 
or  that  fact ;  but  giving  every  fact  its  own  full  power,  and 
every  incident  and  accessory  its  own  true  place, — so  that,  still 
keeping  to  our  illustrations  from  Brighton  or  Yarmouth 
beach,  in  that  most  noble  picture  by  Millais  which  probably 
most  of  you  saw  last  autumn  in  London,  the  'Caller  Herriu',' 
— picture  which,  as  a  piece  of  art,  I  shoiild  myself  put  highest 
of  all  yet  produced  by  the  pre-Raphaelite  school ; — in  that 
most  noble  picture,  I  say,  the  herrings  were  painted  just  as 
well  as  the  girl,  and  the  master  was  not  the  least  afi'aid  that. 


24:  THE  ART  OF  ENGLAND. 

iov  all  he  could  do  to  them,  you  would  look  at  the  herringa 

first. 

Now  then,  I  think  I  have  got  the  manner  of  pre-Raphaelite 
'  Reahzation  '  —  '  Verification '  —  *  Materialization  ' — or  what- 
ever else  you  choose  to  call  it,  positively  enough  asserted  and 
defined  :  and  hence  you  will  see  that  it  follows,  as  a  necessary 
consequence,  that  pre-Raphaelite  subjects  must  iisually  be  of 
real  persons  in  a  solid  world — not  of  personifications  in  a 
vaporescent  one. 

The  persons  may  be  spiritual,  but  they  are  individual, — 
St.  George,  himself,  not  the  vague  idea  of  Fortitude ;  St. 
Cecily  herself,  not  the  mere  power  of  music.  And,  although 
spiritual,  there  is  no  attempt  whatever  made  by  this  school  to 
indicate  their  immortal  nature  by  any  evanescence  or  obscur- 
ity of  aspect.  All  transparent  ghosts  and  unoutlined  spectra 
are  the  work  of  failing  imagination, — rest  you  sure  of  that. 
Botticelli  indeed  paints  the  Favonian  breeze  transparent,  but 
never  the  angel  Gabriel ;  and  in  the  picture  I  was  telling  you 
of  in  last  lecture, — if  there  he  a  fault  which  may  jar  for  a 
moment  on  your  feelings  when  you  first  see  it,  I  am  afi*aid  it 
will  be  that  the  souls  of  the  Innocents  are  a  little  too  chubby, 
and  one  or  two  of  them,  I  should  say,  just  a  dimple  too  fat. 

And  here  I  must  branch  for  a  moment  from  the  direct 
course  of  my  subject,  to  answer  another  question  which  may 
by  this  time  have  occurred  to  some  of  my  hearers,  how,  if 
this  school  be  so  obstinately  realistic,  it  can  also  be  character- 
ized as  romantic. 

"When  we  have  concluded  our  review  of  the  present  state  of 
English  art,  we  will  collect  the  general  evidence  of  its  ro- 
mance ;  meantime,  I  will  say  only  this  much,  for  you  to  think 
out  at  your  leisure,  that  romance  does  not  consist  in  the  man., 
ner  of  representing  or  relating  things,  but  in  the  kind  of  pas- 
sions appealed  to  by  the  things  related.  The  three  romantic 
passions  are  those  by  which  you  are  told,  in  Wordsworth's 
aphoristic  line,  that  the  life  of  the  soul  is  fed. 

"We  Hve  by  Admiration,  Hope,  and  Love."  Admiration, 
meaning  primarily  all  the  forms  of  Hero  Worshij),  and  second- 
arily, the  kind  of  feeling  towards  the  beauty  of  nature,  which 


MYTHIC  SCHOOLS  OF  PAINTING.  25 

I  have  attempted  too  feebly  to  analyze  in  the  second  volume 
of  '  Modern  Painters  ' ; — Hope,  meaning  primarily  the  habit 
of  mind  in  which  we  take  present  pain  for  the  sake  of  future 
pleasure,  and  expanding  into  the  hojie  of  another  world  ; — ' 
and  Love,  meaning  of  course  whatever  is  happiest  or  noblest 
in  the  life  either  of  that  world  or  this. 

Indicating,  thus  briefly,  what,  though  not  always  consciously, 
we  mean  by  Romance,  I  proceed  with  our  present  subject  of 
enquiry,  from  which  I  branched  at  the  point  where  it  had  been 
obserA-ed  that  the  realistic  school  could  only  develop  its  com- 
plete force  in  representing  persons,  and  could  not  happily  rest 
in  personifications.  Nevertheless,  we  find  one  of  the  artists 
whose  close  friendship  with  Kossetti,  and  fellowship  with 
other  members  of  the  pre-Raphaelite  brotherhood,  have  more 
or  less  identified  his  work  with  theirs,  yet  differing  from  them 
all  diametrically  in  this,  that  his  essential  gift  and  habit  of 
thought  is  in  personification,  and  that, — for  sharp  and  brief 
instance,  had  both  Rossetti  and  he  been  set  to  illustrate  the 
first  chapter  of  Genesis,  Rossetti  would  have  painted  either 
Adam  or  Eve — but  Edward  Burne-Jones,  a  Day  of  Creation. 

And  in  this  gift,  he  becomes  a  painter,  neither  of  Divine 
History,  nor  of  Divine  Natural  History,  but  of  Mythology, 
accepted  as  such,  and  understood  by  its  symbolic  figures  to 
represent  only  general  truths,  or  abstract  ideas. 

And  here  I  must  at  once  pray  you,  as  I  have  prayed  you  to 
remove  all  associations  of  falsehood  from  the  word  romance, 
so  also  to  clear  them  out  of  your  faith,  when  you  begin  the 
study  of  mythology.  Never  confuse  a  Myth  with  a  Lie, — 
nay,  you  must  even  be  cautious  how  far  you  even  permit  it  to 
be  called  a  fable.  Take  the  frequentest  and  simplest  of  myths 
for  instance — that  of  Fortune  and  her  wheel  Enid  does  not 
herself  conceive,  or  in  the  least  intend  the  hearers  of  her  song 
to  conceive,  that  there  stands  anywhere  in  the  vmiverse  a  real 
woman,  turning  an  adamantine  wheel  whose  revolutions  have 
power  over  human  destiny.  She  means  only  to  assert,  under 
that  image,  more  clearly  the  law  of  Heaven's  continual  deal- 
ing with  man, — "  He  hath  put  down  the  mighty  from  their 
seat,  and  hath  exalted  the  humble  and  meek." 


26  THE  ART  OF  ENGLAND. 

But  in  the  imagined  symbol,  or  rather  let  me  say,  the  visit« 
ing  and  visible  dream,  of  this  law,  other  ideas  variously  con- 
ducive to  its  clearness  are  gathered  ; — those  of  gi*adual  and 
irresistible  motion  of  rise  and  fall, — the  tide  of  Fortune,  as 
distinguished  from  instant  change  of  catastrophe  ; — those  of 
the  connection  of  the  fates  of  men  with  each  other,  the  yield- 
ing and  occupation  of  high  place,  the  alternately  appointed 
and  inevitable  humiliation  : — and  the  fastening,  in  the  sight 
of  the  Ruler  of  Destiny,  of  all  to  the  mighty  axle  which 
moves  only  as  the  axle  of  the  woi'ld.  These  things  are  told 
or  hinted  to  you,  in  the  mythic  picture,  not  with  the  imperti- 
nence and  the  narrowness  of  words,  nor  in  any  order  com- 
pelling a  monotonous  succession  of  thought, — but  each  as  you 
choose  or  chance  to  read  it,  to  be  rested  in  or  proceeded  with, 
as  you  will. 

Here  then  is  the  ground  on  which  the  Dramatic,  or  per- 
sonal, and  Mythic — or  personifying,  schools  of  our  young 
painters,  whether  we  find  for  them  a  general  name  or  not, 
must  be  thought  of  as  absolutely  one — that,  as  the  dramatic 
painters  seek  to  show  you  the  substantial  truth  of  persons,  so 
the  mythic  school  seeks  to  teach  you  the  spiritual  truth  of 
myths. 

Truth  is  the  vital  power  of  the  entire  school.  Truth  its  ai'- 
mour — Truth  its  war- word  ;  and  the  grotesque  and  Avild  forms 
of  imagination  which,  at  first  sight,  seem  to  be  the  reaction 
of  a  desperate  fancy,  and  a  terrified  faith,  against  the  incisive 
scepticism  of  recent  science,  so  far  from  being  so,  are  a  part 
of  that  science  itself:  they  are  the  results  of  infinitely  more 
accurate  scholarship,  of  infinitely  more  detective  examination, 
of  infinitely  more  just  and  scrupulous  integrity  of  thought, 
than  was  possible  to  any  artist  during  the  two  preceding  cent- 
aries  ;  and  exactly  as  the  eager  and  sympathetic  passion  of 
the  dramatic  designer  now  assures  you  of  the  way  in  Avhich 
an  event  happened,  so  the  scholarly  and  sympathetic  thought 
of  the  mythic  designer  now  assures  you  of  the  meaning,  ic 
what  a  fable  said. 

Much  attention  has  lately  been  paid  by  archaeologists  to 
what  they  are  pleased  to  call  the  development  of  myths :  but, 


MYTHIC  SCHOOLS   OF  PAINTING.  27 

for  (be  most  part,  with  these  two  eiToneous  ideas  to  begin 
with — the  first,  that  mythology  is  a  temporary-  form  of  human 
folly,  from  which  they  are  about  in  their  own  perfect  wisdom 
to  achieve  our  final  deliverance  ;  the  second,  that  you  may 
conclusively  ascertain  the  nature  of  these  much-to-be-lamented 
misapprehensions,  by  the  types  which  eai'ly  art  presents  of 
them  !  You  will  find  in  the  first  section  of  my  '  Queen  of  the 
Air,'  contradiction  enough  of  the  first  supercilious  theory  ; — 
though  not  with  enough  clearness  the  counter  statement,  that 
the  thoughts  of  all  the  greatest  and  wisest  men  hitherto,  since 
the  world  was  made,  have  been  expressed  through  mythology'. 

You  may  find  a  piece  of  most  convincing  evidence  on  this 
point  by  noticing  that  whenever,  by  Plato,  you  are  extiicated 
from  the  play  of  logic,  and  from  the  debate  of  jjoints  dubita- 
ble  or  trivial ;  and  are  to  be  told  somewhat  of  his  inner 
thought,  and  highest  moral  conviction, — that  instant  you  are 
cast  free  in  tlie  elements  of  phantasy,  and  delighted  by  a 
beautiful  myth.  And  I  believe  that  every  master  here  who  is 
interested,  not  merely  in  the  history,  but  in  the  subdance,  of 
moral  philosophy,  will  confirm  me  in  saying  that  the  dii'ect 
maxims  of  the  greatest  sages  of  Greece,  do  not,  in  the  sum  of 
them,  contain  a  code  of  ethics  either  so  pure,  or  so  j^ractical, 
as  that  which  may  be  gathered  by  the  attentive  interpretation 
of  the  myths  of  Pindar  and  Aristophanes. 

Of  the  folly  of  the  second  notion  above-named,  held  by  the 
majority  of  our  students  of  '  development '  in  fable, — that  they 
can  estimate  the  dignity  of  ideas  by  the  symbols  used  for  them, 
in  early  art ;  and  trace  the  succession  of  thought  in  the  human 
mind  by  the  tradition  of  ornament  in  its  manufactures,  I  have 
no  time  to-day  to  give  any  farther  illustration  than  that  long 
since  instanced  to  you,  the  difference  between  the  ideas  con- 
veyed by  Homer's  descrij^tion  of  the  shield  of  Achilles,  (much 
more,  Hesiod's  of  that  of  Herakles,)  and  the  impression  which 
we  should  receive  from  any  actually  contemjDorary  Greek  art. 
You  may  with  confidence  receive  the  restoration  of  the  Ho- 
meric shield,  given  by  Mr.  A.  Murray  in  his  histor}'  of  Greek 
sculpture,  as  authoritatively  representing  the  utmost  graphic 
skill  which  could  at  the  time  have  been  employed  in  the  deco- 


2S  THE  ART  OF  ENGLAND. 

ration  of  a  hero's  armour.  But  the  poet  describes  the  ruda 
imagery  as  producing  the  effect  of  reahty,  and  might  praise 
in  the  same  words  the  sculpture  of  Donatello  or  Ghiberti. 
And  3'ou  may  rest  entirely  satisfied  that  when  the  sui-round- 
ing  realities  are  beautiful,  the  imaginations,  in  all  distin- 
guished human  intellect,  are  beautiful  also,  and  that  the  forms 
of  gods  and  heroes  were  entirely  noble  in  dream,  and  in  con- 
templation, long  before  the  clay  became  ductile  to  the  hand 
of  the  potter,  or  the  likeness  of  a  living  body  possible  in  ivory 
and  gold. 

And  herein  you  see  with  what  a  deeply  interesting  function 
the  modern  painter  of  mythology  is  invested.  He  is  to  place, 
at  the  service  of  former  imagination,  the  art  which  it  had  not 
— and  to  realize  for  us,  with  a  truth  then  impossible,  the  vis- 
ions described  by  the  wisest  of  men  as  embodying  their  most 
pious  thoughts  and  their  most  exalted  doctrines :  not  indeed 
attempting  with  any  literal  exactitude  to  follow  the  words  of 
the  visionary,  for  no  man  can  enter  literally  into  the  mind  of 
another,  neither  can  any  great  designer  refuse  to  obey  the 
suggestions  of  his  own  :  but  only  bringing  the  resources  of 
accomplislied  art  to  unveil  the  hidden  splendour  of  old  imagi- 
nation ;  and  showing  us  that  the  forms  of  gods  and  angels 
which  appeared  in  fancy  to  the  pi'ophets  and  saints  of  an- 
tiquity', were  indeed  more  natural  and  beautiful  than  the  black 
and  red  shadows  on  a  Greek  vase,  or  the  dogmatic  outlines  of 
a  B^'zantine  fresco. 

It  should  be  a  ground  of  just  pride  to  all  of  us  here  in  Ox- 
ford, that  out  of  this  University  came  the  painter  whose  inde- 
fatigable scholarship  and  exhaustless  fancy  have  together  fitted 
him  for  this  task,  in  a  degree  far  distinguishing  him  above  all 
contemporary  European  designers.  It  is  impossible  for  the 
general  public  to  estimate  the  quantity  of  careful  and  investi- 
gator}'  reading,  and  the  fine  tact  of  literary  discrimination, 
which  ai-e  signified  by  the  command  now  possessed  by  Mr. 
Burne-Jones  over  the  entire  range  both  of  Northern  and  Greek 
mythology,  or  the  tenderness  at  once,  and  largeness,  of  sym- 
pathy which  have  enabled  him  to  harmonize  these  with  the 
loveliest  traditions  of  Christian  lej^end.     Hitherto,  there  has 


I 


MYTHIC  SCHOOLS   OF  rMNTLNG.  29 

been  adversity  between  the  schools  of  classic  and  Christia.:: 
art,  only  in  part  conquered  by  the  most  liberal-minded  of  ar- 
tists and  poets  :  Nicliolas  of  Pisa  accepts  indeed  the  technical 
aid  of  antiquity,  but  with  much  loss  to  his  Christian  sentiment  ; 
Dante  uses  the  imagery  of  iEschylus  for  the  more  terrible 
picturing  of  the  Hell  to  which,  in  common  with  the  theologians 
of  his  age,  he  condemned  his  instructor  ;  but  while  Minos  and 
the  Furies  are  i-epresented  by  him  as  still  existent  in  Hades, 
there  is  no  place  in  Paradise  for  Diana  or  Athena.  Contrari- 
wise, the  later  revival  of  the  legends  of  antiquity  meant  scorn 
of  those  of  Christendom.  It  is  but  fifty  years  ago  that  the 
value  of  the  latter  was  again  perceived  and  represented  to  us 
by  Lord  Lindsay  :  and  it  is  only  within  the  time  which  may 
be  looked  back  to  by  the  greater  number  even  of  my  younger 
auditors,  that  the  transition  of  Athenian  mythology,  through 
Byzantine,  into  Christian,  has  been  first  felt,  and  then  traced 
and  proved,  by  the  penetrative  scholarship  of  the  men  belong- 
ing to  this  pre-Raphaelite  school,  chiefly  Mr.  Burne-Jones  and 
Mr.  William  Morris, — noble  collaborateurs,  of  whom,  may  I  be 
forgiven,  in  passing,  for  betraying  to  you  a  pretty  little  sacred- 
ness  of  their  private  life — that  they  solemnly  and  jo\'ially  have 
breakfasted  together  every  Sunday,  for  many  and  many  a  3-ear. 
Thus  fax*,  then,  I  am  able  with  security  to  allege  to  you  the 
peculiar  function  of  this  greatly  gifted  and  highly  trained  Eng- 
lish painter  ;  and  with  security  also,  the  function  of  any  no- 
ble myth,  in  the  teaching,  even  of  this  practical  and  positive 
British  race.  But  now,  Avhen  for  purj^oses  of  direct  criticism 
I  proceed  to  ask  farther  in  what  manner  or  with  what  precis- 
ion of  art  any  given  myth  should  be  presented — instantly  we 
find  ourselves  involved  in  a  group  of  questions  and  difficulties 
which  I  feel  to  be  quite  beyond  the  proper  sphere  of  this  Pro- 
fessorship. So  long  as  we  have  only  to  deal  with  living  creat- 
ures, or  solid  substances,  I  am  able  to  tell  you — and  to  show 
— that  they  are  to  be  painted  under  certain  optical  laws  which 
prevail  in  our  present  atmosphere  ;  and  with  due  respect  to 
laws  of  gravity  and  movement  which  cannot  be  evaded  in  our 
terrestrial  constitution.  But  when  we  have  only  an  idea  to 
paint,  or  a   symbol,   I   do   not  feel  authorized  to  insist  any 


30"  run  ART  OF  ENGLAND. 

longer  upon  these  vulgar  appearances,  or  mortal  and  temporal 
limitations.  I  cannot  arrogantly  or  demonstratively  define  to 
you  how  the  light  should  fall  on  the  two  sides  of  the  nose  of 
a  Day  of  Creation  ;  nor  obstinately  demand  botanical  accuracy 
in  the  graining  of  the  wood  employed  for  the  spokes  of  a 
Wheel  of  Fortune.  Indeed,  so  far  from  feeling  justified  in 
any  such  vexatious  and  vulgar  requirements,  I  am  under  an 
instinctive  impression  that  some  kind  of  strangeness  or  quaint- 
ness,  or  even  violation  of  probability,  would  be  not  merely 
admissible,  but  even  desirable,  in  the  delineation  of  a  figure 
intended  neither  to  represent  a  body,  nor  a  spirit,  neither  an 
animal,  nor  a  vegetable,  but  only  an  idea,  or  an  aphorism. 
Let  me,  however,  before  venturing  one  step  forward  amidst 
the  insecure  snows  and  cloudy  wreaths  of  the  Imagination,  se- 
cure your  confidence  in  my  guidance,  so  far  as  I  may  gain  it 
by  the  assertion  of  one  general  rule  of  proper  safeguard  ;  that 
no  mystery  or  majesty  of  intention  can  be  alleged  by  a  painter 
to  justify  him  in  careless  or  erroneous  drawing  of  any  object 
— so  far  as  he  chooses  to  represent  it  at  all.  The  more  license 
we  grant  to  the  audacity  of  his  conception,  the  more  careful 
he  should  be  to  give  us  no  causeless  ground  of  complaint  of 
ofience  :  while,  in  the  degree  of  impoi*tance  and  didactic  value 
which  he  attaches  to  his  parable,  wiU  be  the  strictness  of  his 
duty  to  allow  no  faults,  by  any  care  avoidable,  to  disturb  the 
spectator's  attention,  or  provoke  his  criticism. 

I  cannot  but  to  this  day  remember,  partly  with  amusement, 
partly  in  vexed  humiliation,  the  simplicity  with  which  I 
brought  out,  one  evening  when  the  sculptor  Marochetti  was 
dining  with  us  at  Denmark  Hill,  some  of  the  then  but  little 
known  drawings  of  Rossetti,  for  his  instruction  in  the  beauties 
of  pre-Raphaelism. 

You  may  see  with  the  slightest  glance  at  the  statue  of  Cceur 
de  Lion,  (the  only  really  interesting  piece  of  historical  sculpt- 
ure we  have  hitherto  given  to  our  City  populace),  that  Maro- 
chetti was  not  only  trained  to  perfectness  of  knowledge  and 
perception  in  the  structure  of  the  human  body,  but  had  also 
peculiar  delight  in  the  harmonies  of  line  which  express  its 
easy  and  powerful  motion.     Knowing  a  little  more  both  of 


MYTHIC  SCHOOLS  OF  PAINTINO.  31 

men  and  things  now,  than  I  did  on  the  evening  in  question, 
I  too  clearh'  apprehend  that  the  violently  variegated  segments 
and  angular  anatomies  of  Sir  Lancelot  at  the  grave  of  King 
Arthur  must  have  produced  on  the  bronze-minded  sculptor 
simply  the  efiect  of  a  Knave  of  Clubs  and  Queen  of  Diamonds  ; 
and  that  the  Italian  master,  in  his  polite  confession  of  inability 
to  recognize  the  virtuf;s  of  Rossetti,  cannot  but  have  greatly 
suspected  the  sincerity  of  his  entertainer,  in  the  profession  of 
sympathy  with  his  own. 

No  faults,  then,  that  we  can  help, — this  we  lay  down  for  cer- 
tain law  to  start  with  ;  therefore,  especially,  no  ignoble  faults, 
of  mere  measurement,  proportion,  perspective,  and  the  like, 
may  be  allowed  to  art,  which  is  by  claim  learned  and  magis- 
tral ;  therefore  bound  to  be,  in  terms,  grammatical.  And  yei 
we  are  not  only  to  allow,  but  even  to  accept  gratefully,  any 
liind  of  strangeness  and  deliberate  difference  from  merely  real- 
istic painting,  which  may  raise  the  work,  not  only  above  vul- 
garity, but  above  incredulity.  For  it  is  often  by  reahzing  it 
most  positively  that  we  shall  render  it  least  credible. 

For  instance,  in  the  prettiest  design  of  the  series,  by  Eichter, 
illustrating  the  Lord's  Prayer,  which  I  asked  you  in  my  last  lec- 
ture to  use  for  household  lessons  ; — that  of  the  mother  giving 
her  young  children  their  dinner  in  the  field  which  their  father 
is  sowing, — one  of  the  pieces  of  the  enclosing  arabesque  rep- 
resents a  little  winged  cherub  emergent  from  a  flower,  hold- 
ing out  a  pitcher  to  a  bee,  who  stoops  to  drink.  The  species 
of  bee  is  not  scientifically  determinable  ;  the  wings  of  the  tiny 
servitor  terminate  I'ather  in  petals  than  plumes  ;  and  the  un- 
pretentious jug  suggests  nothing  of  the  cla3'of  Dresden,  Sevres, 
or  Chelsea.  You  would  not,  I  think,  find  your  children  under- 
stand the  lesson  in  divinity  better,  or  believe  it  more  frankly, 
if  the  hymenopterous  insect  were  painted  so  accurately  that, 
(to  use  the  old  method  of  eulogium  on  painting,)  you  could 
hear  it  buzz;  and  the  cherub  completed  into  the  living  likeness 
of  a  little  boy  with  blue  eyes  and  red  cheeks,  but  of  the  size 
of  a  humming-bird.  Li  this  and  in  myriads  of  similar  cases, 
it  is  possible  to  imagine  from  an  outline  what  a  finished 
picture  would  only  provoke  us  to  deny  in  contempt. 


32  THE  ART  OF  ENGLAND. 

Again,  in  my  opening  lecture  on  Light  and  Shade,  the  sixth 
of  those  given  in  the  year  1870,  I  traced  in  some  complete- 
ness the  range  of  idea  which  a  Greek  vase-painter  was  in  the 
habit  of  conveying  by  the  mere  opposition  of  dark  and  light 
in  the  figures  and  background,  with  the  occasional  use  of  a 
modifying  purple.  It  has  always  been  matter  of  surprise  to 
me  that  the  Greeks  rested  in  colours  so  severe,  and  I  have  in 
several  places  fonnerly  ventured  to  state  my  conviction  that 
their  sense  of  colour  was  inferior  to  that  of  other  races. 
Nevertheless,  you  will  find  that  the  conceptions  of  moral  and 
physical  truth  which  they  were  able  with  these  naiTow  means 
to  convey,  are  far  loftier  than  the  utmost  that  can  be  gathered 
from  the  iridescent  delicacy  of  Chinese  design,  or  the  literally 
imitative  dexterities  of  Japan. 

Now,  in  both  these  methods,  Mr.  Bume-Jones  has  devel- 
oped their  applicable  powers  to  their  highest  extent.  Hia 
outline  is  the  purest  and  quietest  that  is  possible  to  the  pen- 
cil ;  nearly  all  other  masters  accentuate  falsely,  or  in  some 
places,  as  Eichter,  add  shadows  which  are  more  or  less  con- 
ventional But  an  outUne  bj'  Burne-Jones  is  as  pure  as  the 
lines  of  engraving  on  an  Etruscan  mirror ;  and  I  placed  the 
series  of  drawings  from  the  story  of  Psyche  in  your  school  as 
faultlessly  exemplary  in  this  kind.  "Whether  pleasing  or  dis- 
pleasing to  your  taste,  they  are  entirely  masterful ;  and  it  is 
only  by  trying  to  copy  these  or  other  such  outlines,  that  you 
will  fully  feel  the  grandeur  of  action  in  the  moving  hand, 
tranquil  and  swift  as  a  hawk's  flight,  and  never  allowing  a  vul- 
gar tremor,  or  a  momentary  impulse,  to  impair  its  precision, 
or  disturb  its  serenity. 

Again,  though  Mr.  Jones  has  a  sense  of  colour  in  its  kind, 
perfect,  he  is  essentially  a  chiaroscurist.  Diametrically  op- 
posed to  Rossetti,  who  could  conceive  in  color  only,  he  pre- 
fers subjects  which  can  be  divested  of  superficial  attractive- 
ness, appeal  first  to  the  intellect  and  the  heart ;  and  convey 
their  lesson  either  through  intricacies  of  delicate  line,  or  in 
the  dimness  or  coruscation  of  ominous  light. 

The  heads  of  Medea  and  of  Danae,  which  I  placed  in  your 
schools  long  ago,  are  representative  of  all  that  you  need  aim 


MYTHIC  SCHOOLS  OF  PAINTING.  33 

at  in  chiaroscuro  ;  and  lately  a  third  type  of  his  best  work, 
in  subdued  pencil  light  and  shade,  has  been  placed  within 
your  reach  in  Dr,  Aclaud's  drawing-i-oom, — the  portrait  of 
Miss  Gladstone,  in  which  you  will  see  the  painter's  best  pow- 
ers stimulated  to  their  utmost,  and  reaching  a  serene  depth 
of  expression  unattainable  by  photography,  and  nearly  certain 
to  be  lost  in  finished  painting. 

For  there  is  this  perpetually  increasing  difficulty  towards 
the  completion  of  any  work,  that  the  added  forces  of  colom* 
destroy  the  value  of  the  pale  and  subtle  tints  or  shades  which 
give  the  nobleness  to  expression  ;  so  that  the  most  powerful 
masters  in  oil  painting  rarely  aim  at  expression,  but  only  at 
general  character — and  I  believe  the  great  artist  whose  name 
I  have  associated  with  that  of  Burne- Jones  as  representing 
the  mythic  schools,  Mr.  G.  F.  Watts,  has  been  partly  re- 
strained, and  partly  oppressed  by  the  very  earnestness  and 
extent  of  the  study  through  which  he  has  sought  to  make  his 
work  on  all  sides  perfect.  His  constant  reference  to  the  high- 
est examples  of  Greek  art  in  form,  and  his  sensitiveness  to 
the  qualities  at  once  of  tenderness  and  breadth  in  pencil  and 
chalk  drawing,  have  -sdrtually  ranked  him  among  the  painters 
of  the  great  Athenian  days,  of  whom,  in  the  sixth  book  of 
the  Laws,  Plato  Avrote  : — "  You  know  how  the  anciently  accu- 
rate toil  of  a  painter  seems  never  to  reach  a  term  that  satis- 
fies him  ;  but  he  must  either  farther  touch,  or  soften  the 
touches  laid  already,  and  never  seems  to  reach  a  point  where 
he  has  not  yet  some  power  to  do  more,  so  as  to  make  the 
things  he  has  drawn  more  beautiful,  and  more  apparent  xaAAiw 
re  Ktti   <fiav€pu)Tepa," 

Of  course  within  the  limits  of  this  lecture  there  is  no  possi- 
bility of  entering  on  the  description  of  separate  pictures ;  but 
I  trust  it  may  be  hereafter  ray  privilege  to  carry  you  back  to 
the  beginning  of  English  historical  art,  when  Mr.  Watts  first 
showed  victorious  powers  of  design  in  the  competition  for  the 
frescoes  of  the  Houses  of  Parliament — and  thence  to  trace  for 
you,  in  some  completeness,  the  code  of  mythic  and  heroic 
story  which  these  two  artists,  Mr.  Watts  and  Mr.  Burne- Jones, 
have  gathered,  and  in  the  most  deep  sense  written,  for  us. 
3 


34  THE  ART  OF  ENGLAND. 

To-day  I  have  only  brought  with  me  a  few  designs  by  Mr. 
Burne-Jones,  of  a  kind  which  may  be  to  some  extent  well 
represented  in  photograph,  and  to  which  I  shall  have  occa- 
sion to  refer  in  subsequent  lectures.  They  are  not  to  be 
copied,  but  delighted  in,  by  those  of  you  who  care  for  them, 
— and,  under  Mr.  Fisher's  care,  I  shall  recommend  them  to  be 
kept  out  of  the  way  of  those  who  do  not.  They  include  the 
Days  of  Creation  ;  three  outlines  from  Solomon's  Song  ;  two 
from  the  Romance  of  the  Rose  ;  the  great  one  of  Athena  in- 
spiring Humanity  ;  and  the  story  of  St.  George  and  Sabra, 
They  will  be  placed  in  a  cabinet  in  the  upper  gallery,  together 
with  the  new  series  of  Turnei*  sketches,  and  will  by  no  means 
be  intruded  on  your  attention,  but  made  easily  accessible  to 
your  wish. 

To  j  ustify  this  monastic  treatment  of  them,  I  must  say  a 
few  words,  in  conclusion,  of  the  dislike  which  these  designs, 
in  common  with  those  of  Carpaccio,  excite  in  the  minds 
of  most  English  people  of  a  practical  turn.  A  few  words 
onl}',  both  because  this  lecture  is  already  long  enough,  and 
besides,  because  the  point  in  question  is  an  extremely  curious 
one,  and  by  no  means  to  be  rightly  given  account  of  in  a  con- 
cluding sentence.  The  point  is,  that  in  the  case  of  ordinary 
painters,  however  pecuhar  their  manner,  people  either  like 
them,  or  pass  them  by  with  a  merciful  contempt  or  condem- 
nation, calling  them  stupid,  or  weak,  or  foolish,  but  without 
any  expression  of  real  disgust  or  dislike.  But  in  the  case  of 
painters  of  the  mythic  schools,  people  either  greatly  like 
them,  or  they  dislike  in  a  sort  of  frightened  and  angry  way, 
as  if  they  had  been  personally  aggrieved.  And  the  persons 
who  feel  this  antipathy  most  strongl}',  are  often  extremely 
sensible  and  good,  and  of  the  kind  one  is  extremely  unwilling 
to  offend  ;  but  either  they  are  not  fond  of  art  at  all,  or  else 
they  admire,  naturalh',  pictures  from  real  life  only,  such  as, 
to  name  an  extremely  characteristic  example,  those  of  the  (I 
believe,  Bavarian)  painter  Vautier,  of  whom  I  shall  have 
much,  in  another  place,  to  say  in  praise,  but  of  whom,  with 
tlie  total  school  he  leads,  I  must  peremptorily  assure  my 
hearers  that  their  manner  of  painting  is  merely  part  of  oui 


CLASSIC  SCHOOLS  OF  PAINTING.  35 

general  modern  system  of  scientific  illustration  aided  by 
photography,  and  has  no  claim  to  rank  with  works  of  creative 
art  at  all ;  and  farther,  that  it  is  essentially  illiterate,  and  can 
teach  you  nothing  but  what  you  can  easily  see  without  the 
painter's  trouble.  Here  is,  for  instance,  a  very  charming  little 
picture  of  a  school  girl  going  to  her  class,  and  telling  her  doll 
to  be  good  till  she  comes  back  ;  you  like  it,  and  ought  to  like 
it,  because  you  see  the  same  kind  of  incident  in  your  own 
children  every  day  ;  but  I  should  say,  on  the  whole,  you  had 
better  look  at  the  real  children  than  the  picture.  Whereas, 
you  can't  every  day  at  home  see  the  goddess  Athena  telling 
you  yourselves  to  be  good, — and  perhaps  you  wouldn't  alto- 
gether like  to,  if  you  could. 

"Without  venturing  on  the  rudeness  of  hinting  that  any 
such  feeling  underlies  the  English  dislike  for  didactic  art,  I 
will  pray  you  at  once  to  check  the  habit  of  carelessly  blamiiig 
the  things  that  repel  you  in  early  or  existing  religious  artists, 
and  to  observe,  for  the  sum  of  what  is  to  be  noted  respecting 
the  four  of  whom  I  have  thus  far  ventured  to  speak — Mr. 
Rossetti,  Mr.  Hunt,  Mr.  Jones,  and  Mr.  Watts,  that  they  are  in 
the  most  solemn  sense,  Hero-worshippers  ;  and  that,  whatever 
may  be  their  faults  or  shortcomings,  their  aim  has  always 
been  the  brightest  and  the  noblest  possible.  The  more  you 
can  admire  them,  and  the  longer  you  read,  the  more  your 
minds  and  hearts  will  be  filled  with  the  best  knowledge  acces- 
sible in  history,  and  the  loftiest  associations  conveyable  by  the 
passionate  and  reverent  skill,  of  which  I  have  told  you  in  the 
'Laws  of  Fesole,'  that  "All  great  Art  is  Praise." 


LECTURE  HL 


Classic  Schools  of  Painting. 

SIR   F.    LEIGHTON    AND    ALMA    TADEMA. 

I  HAD  originally  intended  this  lecture  to  be  merely  the  ex- 
position, with  direct  reference  to  painting  and  literature,  of 
the  single  line  of  Horace  which  sums  the  conditions  of  a 


36  THE  ART  OF  ENGLAND. 

gentleman's  education,  be  he  rich  or  poor,  learned  or  un« 
learned : 

"  Est  animus  tibi, — sunt  mores  et  lingua, — fidesque," 

'  animus '  being  that  part  of  him  in  which  he  differs  from  an 
ox  or  an  ape  ;  '  mores,'  the  difference  in  him  from  the  '  malig- 
num  vulgus';  'lingua,' eloquence,  the  power  of  expression; 
and  '  fides,'  fidelity,  to  the  Master,  or  Mistress,  or  Law,  that 
he  loves.  But  since  I  came  to  London  and  saw  the  exhibi- 
tions, I  have  thought  good  to  address  my  discourse  more 
pertinently  to  what  must  at  this  moment  chiefly  interest  you 
in  them.  And  I  must  at  once,  and  before  everything,  teU  you 
the  delight  given  me  by  the  quite  beautiful  work  in  portrait- 
ure, with  which  my  brother-professor  Richmond  leads  and 
crowns  the  general  splendour  of  the  Grosvenor  Gallery.  I 
am  doubly' thankful  that  his  release  from  labour  in  Oxford 
has  enabled  him  to  develop  his  special  powers  so  nobly,  and 
that  my  own  return  grants  me  the  privilege  of  publicly  ex- 
pressing to  him  the  admiration  we  all  must  feel. 

And  now  in  this  following  lecture,  you  must  please  under- 
stand at  once  that  I  use  the  word  '  classic,'  first  in  its  own 
sense  of  senatorial,  academic,  and  authoritative  ;  but,  as  a 
necessary  consequence  of  that  first  meaning,  also  in  the  sense, 
more  proper  to  our  immediate  subject,  of  Anti-Gothic  ;  an- 
tagonist, that  is  to  say,  to  the  temper  in  which  Gothic  archi- 
tecture was  built :  and  not  only  antagonist  to  that  form  of 
art,  but  contemptuous  of  it  ;  unforgiving  to  its  faults,  cold  to 
its  enthusiasms,  and  impatient  of  its  absurdities.  In  which 
contempt  the  classic  mind  is  certainly  illiberal ;  and  naiTower 
than  the  mind  of  an  equitable  art  student  should  be  in  these 
enlightened  daj'S  : — for  instance,  in  the  British  Museum,  it  is 
quite  right  that  the  British  public  should  see  the  Elgin 
marbles  to  the  best  advantage  ;  but  not  that  they  should  be 
unable  to  see  any  example  of  the  sculpture  of  Chartres  or 
Wells,  unless  they  go  to  the  miscellaneous  collection  of  Ken- 
sington, where  Gothic  saints  and  sinners  are  confounded  alike 
among  steam  threshing-machines  and  dynamite-proof  ships  oi 


CLASSIC  SCHOOLS  OF  PAINTING.  rf< 

war  ;  or  to  the  Crystal  Palace,  where  they  are  mixed  up  with 
Rimmel's  perfumery. 

For  this  hostility,  in  our  present  English  schools,  between 
the  votaries  of  classic  and  Gothic  art,  there  is  no  ground  in 
past  history,  and  no  excuse  in  the  nature  of  those  arts  them- 
selves. Briefly,  to-day  I  would  sum  for  you  the  statement  of 
their  historical  continuity  which  you  will  find  expanded  and 
illustrated  in  my  former  lectures. 

Only  observe,  for  the  present,  you  must  please  put  Oriental 
Art  entirely  out  of  your  heads.  I  shall  allow  myself  no  allu- 
sion to  China,  Japan,  India,  Assyria,  or  Arabia :  though  this 
restraint  on  myself  will  be  all  the  more  difficult,  because,  only 
a  few  weeks  sinpe,  I  had  a  delightful  audience  of  Sir  Frederick 
Leighton  beside  his  Arabian  fountain,  and  beneath  his  Alad- 
din's palace  glass.  Yet  I  shall  not  aUude,  in  Avhat  I  say  of  his 
designs,  to  any  points  in  which  they  may  perchance  have  been 
influenced  by  those  enchantments.  Similarly  there  wei'e  some 
charming  Zobeides  and  Cleopatras  among  the  variegated  col- 
our fancies  of  Mr.  Alma  Tadema  in  the  last  Grosvenor  ;  but  I 
have  nothing  yet  to  say  of  them  :  it  is  only  as  a  careful  and 
learned  interpreter  of  certain  phases  of  Greek  and  Roman  life, 
and  as  himself  a  most  accomplished  painter,  on  long  estab- 
lished principles,  that  I  name  him  as  representativel}' '  classic' 

The  summaiy,  therefore,  which  I  have  to  give  you  of  the 
course  of  Pagan  and  Gothic  Art  must  be  understood  as  kept 
wholly  on  this  side  of  the  Bosphorus,  and  recognizing  no  far- 
ther shore  beyond  the  Mediterranean.  Thus  fixing  our  ter- 
mini, you  find  from  the  earliest  times,  in  Greece  and  Italy,  a 
multitude  of  artists  gradually  perfecting  the  knowledge  and 
representation  of  the  human  body,  glorified  by  the  exercises 
of  war.  And  you  have,  north  of  Greece  and  Italy,  innumer- 
ably and  incorrigibly  savage  nations,  representing,  with  rude 
and  irregular  efforts,  on  huge  stones,  and  ice-borne  boulders, 
on  cave-bones  and  forest-stocks  and  logs,  with  any  manner  of 
innocent  tinting  or  scratching  possible  to  them,  sometimes 
beasts,  sometimes  hobgoblins — sometimes,  heaven  only  knows 
what ;  but  never  attaining  any  skill  in  figure-drawing,  until, 
whether  invading  or  invaded,  Greece  and  Italy  teach  them 


38  THE  ART  OF  ENGLAND. 

what  a  human  being  is  like  ;  and  with  that  help  they  dream 
and  blundex'  on  through  the  centuries,  achieving  many  fantas- 
tic and  amusing  things,  more  especially  the  art  of  rhyming, 
whereby  they  usually  express  their  notions  of  things  far  better 
than  by  painting.  Nevertheless,  in  due  course  we  get  a  Hol- 
bein out  of  them  ;  and,  in  the  end,  for  best  product  hitherto, 
Sir  Joshua,  and  the  supremely  Gothic  Gainsborough,  whose 
last  words  we  may  take  for  a  beautiful  reconciliation  of  all 
schools  and  souls  who  have  done  their  work  to  the  best  of 
their  knowledge  and  conscience, — "  We  are  all  going  to  Hea- 
ven, and  Vandyke  is  of  the  company'." 

"We  are  all  going  to  Heaven."  Either  that  is  true  of  men 
and  nations,  or  else  that  they  are  going  the  other  way ;  and 
the  question  of  questions  for  them  is — not  how  far  from  heaven 
they  are,  but  whether  they  are  going  to  it.  Whether  in  Gothic 
or  Classic  Art,  it  is  not  the  wisdom  or  the  barbarism  that  you 
have  to  estimate — not  the  skill  nor  the  mdeness  ; — but  the 
tendency.  For  instance,  just  before  coming  to  Oxford  this 
time,  I  received  by  happy  chance  from  Florence  the  noble 
book  just  published  at  Monte  Cassino,  giving  facsimiles  of  the 
Benedictine  manuscripts  there,  between  the  tenth  and  thir- 
teenth centuries.  Out  of  it  I  have  chosen  these  four  magnifi- 
cent letters  to  place  in  your  schools — magnificent  I  call  them, 
as  pieces  of  Gothic  writing  ;  but  they  are  still,  you  will  find 
on  close  examination,  extremely  limited  in  range  of  imagina- 
tive subject.  For  these,  and  all  the  other  letters  of  the  alpha- 
bet in  that  central  Benedictine  school  at  the  period  in  question, 
were  composed  of  nothing  else  but  packs  of  white  dogs,  jump- 
ing, with  more  contortion  of  themselves  than  has  been  con- 
trived even  by  modern  stage  athletes,  through  any  quantity  of 
hoops.  But  I  place  these  chosen  examples  in  our  series  of 
lessons,  not  as  patterns  of  dog-drawing,  but  as  distinctly  pro- 
gressive Gothic  art,  leading  infallibly  forward — though  the 
good  monks  had  no  notion  how  far, — to  the  Benedictine  collie, 
in  Landseer's  '  Shepherd's  Chief  Mourner,'  and  the  Benedic- 
tine bulldog,  in  Mr.  Britton  Eiviere's  '  Sympathy.' 

On  the  other  hand,  here  is  an  enlargement,  made  to  about 
the  proper  scale,  from  a  small  engraving  which  I  brought  witl? 


CLASSIC  SCHOOLS  OF  PAmTTNG.  39 

me  from  Naples,  of  a  piece  of  the  Classic  Pompeian  art  which 
has  lately  been  so  much  the  admiration  of  the  aesthetic  cliques 
of  Paris  and  London.  It  purports  to  represent  a  sublimely 
classic  cat,  catching  a  sublimely  classic  chicken  ;  and  is  per- 
haps quite  as  much  like  a  cat  as  the  white  spectra  of  Monte 
Cassino  are  like  dogs.  But  at  a  glance  I  can  tell  you, — nor 
will  you,  surely,  doubt  the  truth  of  the  telling, — that  it  is  art 
in  precipitate  decadence  ;  that  no  bettering  or  even  far  di'ag- 
ging  on  of  its  existence  is  possible  for  it ; — that  it  is  the  work 
of  a  nation  already  in  the  jaws  of  death,  and  of  a  school  which 
is  passing  away  in  shame. 

Remember,  therefore,  and  write  it  on  the  very  tables  of  your 
heart,  that  you  must  never,  when  you  have  to  judge  of  char- 
acter in  national  styles,  regard  them  in  their  decadence,  but 
always  in  their  spring  and  youth.  Greek  art  is  to  be  studied 
from  Homeric  days  to  those  of  Marathon  ;  Gothic,  from 
Alfred  to  the  Black  Pi'ince  in  England,  from  Clovis  to  St. 
Louis  in  France  ;  and  the  combination  of  both,  Avhich  occurs 
first  with  absolute  balance  in  the  pulpit  by  Nicholas  of  Pisa  in 
her  baptistery,  thenceforward  up  to  Perugino  and  Sandro  Bot- 
ticelli. A  period  of  decadence  follows  among  all  the  nations 
of  Europe,  out  of  the  ashes  and  embers  of  which  the  flame 
leaps  again  in  Rubens  and  Vandyke  ;  and  so  gradually  glows 
and  coruscates  into  the  intermittent  coi-ona  of  indescribably 
various  modern  mind,  of  which  in  England  you  may,  as  I 
said,  take  Sir  Joshua  and  Gainsborough  for  not  only  the  top- 
most, but  the  hitherto  total,  representatives ;  total,  that  is  to 
say,  out  of  the  range  of  landscape,  and  above  that  of  satire 
and  caricature.  All  that  the  rest  can  do  partially,  they  cau  do 
perfectly.  They  do  it,  not  only  perfectly,  but  nationally  ;  they 
are  at  once  the  greatest,  and  the  Englishest,  of  all  our  school. 

The  Englishest — and  observe  also,  therefore  the  greatest : 
take  that  for  an  universal,  exceptionless  law  ; — the  largest  soul 
of  any  country  is  altogether  its  oivn.  Not  the  citizen  of  the 
world,  but  of  his  own  city, — nay,  for  the  best  men,  you  may 
say,  of  his  own  village.  Patriot  always,  provincial  always,  of 
his  own  crag  or  field  always.  A  Liddesdale  man,  or  a  Tyne- 
dale  ;  Angelico  from  the  Rock  of  Fesole,  or  Virgil  from  the 


4U  THE  ART  OF  ENGLAND. 

Mantuan  marsh.  You  dream  of  National  unity  !-i-you  miglit 
as  well  strive  to  melt  the  stars  clown  into  one  nugget,  and 
stamp  them  small  into  coin  with  one  Caesar's  face. 

What  mental  qualities,  especially  English,  you  find  in  the 
painted  heroes  and  beauties  of  Reynolds  and  Gainsborough,  I 
can  only  discuss  with  you  hereafter.  But  what  external  and 
corporeal  qualities  these  masters  of  our  masters  love  to  paint, 
I  must  ask  you  to-day  to  consider  for  a  few  moments,  under 
Mr.  Carlyle's  guidance,  as  well  as  mine,  and  with  the  analysis 
of  '  Sartor  Kesartus.'  Tate,  as  types  of  the  best  work  ever 
laid  on  British  canvas, — types  which  I  am  sure  you  will  with- 
out demur  accept, — Sir  Joshua's  Age  of  Innocence,  and  Mrs. 
Pelham  feeding  chickens ;  Gainsborough's  Mrs.  Graham  di- 
vinely doing  nothing,  and  Blue  Boy  similarly  occupied  ;  and, 
fiuall}-,  Reynolds'  Lord  Heathfield  magnanimously  and  irrevo- 
cably locking  up  Gibraltar.  Suppose,  now,  under  the  instiga- 
tion of  Mr.  Carlyle  and  '  Sartor,'  and  under  the  counsel  of 
Zeuxis  and  Pai'rhasius,  we  had  it  really  in  our  power  to  bid 
Sir  Joshua  and  Gainsborough  paint  all  these  over  again,  in 
the  classic  manner.  Would  you  really  insist  on  having  her 
white  frock  taken  off  the  Age  of  Innocence  ;  on  the  Blue  Boy's 
divesting  himself  of  his  blue  ;  on — we  may  not  dream  of  any- 
thing more  classic — Mrs.  Graham's  taking  the  feathers  out  of 
her  hat ;  and  on  Lord  Heathfield's  parting, — I  dare  not  sug- 
gest, with  his  regimentals,  but  his  orders  of  the  Bath,  or  what 
else? 

I  own  that  I  cannot,  even  myself,  as  I  propose  the  alterna- 
tives, answer  absolutely  as  a  Goth,  nor  without  some  wistful 
leanings  towards  classic  principle.  Nevertheless,  I  feel  confi- 
dent in  your  general  admission  that  the  charm  of  all  these  pict- 
ures is  in  great  degree  dependent  on  toilette  ;  that  the  fond 
and  graceful  flatteries  of  each  master  do  in  no  small  measure 
consist  in  his  management  of  frillings  and  trimmings,  cuffs  and 
collarettes  ;  and  on  beautiful  flingings  or  fastenings  of  investi- 
ture, which  can  only  here  and  there  be  called  a  drapery,  but 
insists  on  the  perfectness  of  the  forms  it  conceals,  and  deepens 
their  harmony  by  its  contradiction.  And  although  now  ana 
then,  when  great  ladies  wish  to  be  painted  as  sibyls  or  god- 


CLASSIC  SCHOOLS  OF  PAINTING.  41 

desses,  Sir  Joshua  does  his  best  to  bethink  himself  of  Michael 
Angelo,  and  Guido,  and  the  Lightnings,  and  the  Auroras,  and 
all  the  rest  of  it, — you  will,  I  think,  admit  that  the  culminat- 
ing sweetness  and  rightness  of  him  are  in  some  little  Lady  So- 
and-so,  with  round  hat  and  strong  shoes  ;  and  that  a  final 
separation  fi-om  the  Greek  art  which  can  be  proud  in  a  torso 
without  a  head,  is  achieved  by  the  master  who  paints  for  you 
five  little  girls'  heads,  without  ever  a  torso  ! 

Thus,  then,  we  an-ive  at  a  clearly  intelUgible  distinction  be- 
tween the  Gothic  and  Classic  schools,  and  a  clear  notion  also 
of  their  dependence  on  one  another.  All  jesting  apart, — I 
think  you  may  safely  take  Luca  della  Eobbia  with  his  scholars 
for  an  exponent  of  their  unity,  to  all  nations.  Luca  is  brightly 
Tuscan,  with  the  dignity  of  a  Greek  ;  he  has  English  simplic- 
ity, French  grace,  Italian  devotion, — and  is,  I  think,  delightful 
to  the  tiniest  lovers  of  art  in  all  nations,  and  of  all  ranks.  The 
Florentine  Contadina  rejoices  to  see  him  above  her  fruit-stall 
in  the  Mercato  Vecchio  :  and,  having  by  chance  the  other  day 
a  Httle  Nativity  by  him  on  the  floor  of  my  study  (one  of  his 
frequentest  designs  of  the  Lnfant  Christ  laid  on  the  ground, 
and  the  Madonna  kneeling  to  Him) — having  it,  I  say,  by 
chance  on  the  f,oor,  when  a  fashionable  little  girl  with  her 
mother  came  t(  see  me,  the  child  about  three  years  old — 
though  there  v  ere  many  pretty  and  glittering  things  about 
the  room  whicti  might  have  caught  her  eye  or  her  fancy,  the 
first  thing,  nevertheless,  my  little  lady  does,  is  to  totter  quietly 
up  to  the  white  Lifant  Christ,  and  kiss  it. 

Taking,  then,  Luca,  for  central  between  Classic  and  Gothic 
in  sculpture,  for  central  art  of  Florence,  in  painting,  I  show 
you  the  copies  made  for  the  St.  George's  Guild,  of  the  two 
frescoes  by  Sandro  Botticelli,  lately  bought  by  the  French 
Government  for  the  Louvre.  These  copies,  made  under  the 
direction  of  Mr.  C.  F.  Murray,  while  the  frescoes  were  still 
untouched,  are  of  singular  value  now.  For  in  their  transfer- 
ence to  canvas  for  carriage  much  violent  damage  was  sustained 
by  the  originals  ;  and  as,  even  before,  they  were  not  present- 
able to  the  satisfaction  of  the  French  public,  the  backgrounds 
were  filled  in  with  black,  the  broken  edges  cut  away ;  and,  thus 


42  THE  AKT  OF  ENGLAND. 

repainted  and  maimed,  they  are  now,  disgraced  and  glassless, 
let  into  the  wall  of  a  stair-landing  on  the  outside  of  the  Lou\Te 
galleries. 

You  will  judge  for  j'^ourselves  of  their  deservings  ;  but  for 
my  own  part  I  can  assure  you  of  their  being  quite  central  and 
classic  Florentine  painting,  and  types  of  the  manner  in  which, 
so  far  as  you  follow  the  instructions  given  in  the  '  Laws  of 
Fesole,'  you  will  be  guided  to  paint.  Their  subjects  should 
be  of  special  interest  to  us  in  Oxford  and  Cambridge,  as  beai-- 
ing  on  institutions  of  colleges  for  maidens  no  less  than  bache- 
lors. For  these  frescoes  represent  the  Florentine  ideal  of  edu- 
cation for  maid  and  bachelor, — the  one  baptised  by  the  Graces 
for  her  man-iage,  and  the  other  brought  to  the  tutelage  of  the 
Great  Powers  of  Knowledge,  under  a  great  presiding  Muse, 
whose  name  you  must  help  me  to  interpret ;  and  with  good 
help,  both  from  maid  and  bachelor,  I  hope  we  shall  soon  be 
able  to  name,  and  honour,  all  their  graces  and  virtues  rightly. 

Five  out  of  the  six  Sciences  and  Powers  on  her  right  hand 
and  left,  I  know.  They  are,  on  her  left — geometry,  astronomy, 
and  music  ;  on  her  right — logic  and  rhetoric.  The  third, 
nearest  her,  I  do  not  know,  and  will  not  guess.  She  herself 
bears  a  mighty  bow,  and  I  could  give  you  conjectural  inter- 
pretations of  her,  if  I  chose,  to  any  extent  ;  but  will  wait  until 
I  hear  what  you  think  of  her  yourselves.  I  must  leave  you  also 
to  discover  by  whom  the  youth  is  introduced  to  the  great  con- 
clave ;  but  observe,  that,  as  in  the  frescoes  of  the  Spanish 
Chapel,  before  he  can  approach  that  presence  he  has  passed 
through  the  '  Strait  Gate,'  of  which  the  bar  has  fallen,  and  the 
Talve  is  thrown  outwards.  This  portion  of  the  fresco,  on 
which  the  most  important  significance  of  the  whole  depended, 
was  cut  away  in  the  French  restoration. 

Taking  now  Luca  and  Sandro  for  standards  of  sweet  con- 
sent in  the  feelings  of  either  school,  falling  aside  from  them 
according  to  their  likings  or  knowledge,  j'ou  have  the  two 
evermore  adverse  parties,  of  whom  Lord  Lindsay  speaks,  as 
one  studying  the  spirit,  and  the  other  the  flesh  :  but  you  will 
find  it  more  simply  true  to  say  that  the  one  studies  the  head, 
and  the  other  the  body.     And  I  think  I  am  almost  alone 


CLASSIC  SCHOOLS  OF  PAINTING.  43 

amoBg  recent  tutoi's  or  professors,  in  recommending  you  to 
study  both,  at  their  best,  and  neither  the  skull  of  the  one,  nor 
skeleton  of  the  other. 

I  had  a  special  lesson,  leading  me  to  this  balance,  when  I 
■«as  in  Venice,  in  1880.  The  authorities  of  the  Academy  did 
me  the  grace  of  taking  down  my  two  pet  pictures  of  St. 
Ursula,  and  putting  them  into  a  quiet  room  for  me  to  copy. 
Now  in  this  quiet  room  where  I  was  allowed  to  paint,  there 
were  a  series  of  casts  from  the  ^gina  marbles,  which  I  never 
had  seen  conveniently  before  ;  and  so,  on  my  right  hand  and 
left,  I  had,  all  day  long,  the  best  pre-Praxitelite  Classic  ai-t, 
and  the  best  pi'e-Raphaelite  Gothic  art :  and  could  turn  to 
this  side,  or  that,  in  an  instant,  to  enjoy  either  ; — which  I 
could  do,  in  each  case,  with  my  whole  heart ;  only  on  this 
condition,  that  if  I  was  to  admire  St.  Ursula,  it  was  necessary 
on  the  whole  to  be  content  with  her  face,  and  not  to  be  too 
critical  or  curious  about  her  elbows  ;  but,  in  the  .^gina  mar- 
bles, one's  principal  attention  had  to  be  given  to  the  knees 
and  elbows,  while  no  ardent  sympathies  were  excited  by  the 
fixed  smile  upon  the  face. 

Without  pressing  our  northern  cherubic  j)rinciples  to  an 
extreme,  it  is  reall}'  a  true  and  extremely  important  conse- 
quence that  all  portraiture  is  essentially  Gothic.  You  will 
find  it  stated — and  with  completely  illustrative  proof,  in  '  Ara- 
tra  Pentelici,'  that  portraiture  was  the  destruction  of  Greek 
design  ;  certain  exceptions  being  pointed  out  which  I  do  not 
wish  you  now  to  be  encumbered  with.  You  may  understand 
broadly  that  we  Goths  claim  portraiture  altogether  for  our 
own,  and  contentedly  leave  the  classic  people  to  round  their 
chins  by  rule,  and  fix  their  smiles  by  precedent :  ice  like  a 
little  irregularity  in  feature,  and  a  little  caprice  in  humour — 
and  with  the  condition  of  dramatic  truth  in  passion,  neces- 
sarily accept  dramatic  difference  in  feature. 

Our  English  masters  of  portraiture  must  not  therefore 
think  that  I  have  treated  them  with  disrespect,  in  not  naming 
them.  In  these  lectures,  separately  from  others.  Portraiture 
is  simply  a  necessary  function  of  good  Gothic  painting,  nor 
can  any  man  claim  pre-eminence  in  epic  or  historic  art  who 


44  THE  ART  OF  ENGLAND. 

does  not  first  excel  in  that.  Nevertheless,  be  it  said  in  pass- 
ing, that  the  number  of  excellent  portraits  given  daily  in  our 
illustrated  papers  prove  the  skill  of  mere  likeness-taking  to 
be  no  unfrequent  or  particularly  admirable  one  ;  and  that  it 
is  to  be  somewhat  desired  that  our  professed  portrait-paintera 
should  render  their  work  valuable  in  all  respects,  and  exem- 
plary in  its  art,  no  less  than  delightful  in  its  resemblance. 
The  public,  who  are  naturally  in  the  habit  of  requiring  rather 
the  felicity  and  swiftness  of  likeness  than  abstract  excellence 
ill  painting,  are  alwaj'^s  ready  to  forgive  the  impetuosity  which 
resembles  force  ;  and  the  interests  connected  with  rate  of  pro- 
duction tend  also  towards  the  encouragement  of  superficial 
execution.  Whereas  in  a  truly  great  school,  for  the  reasons 
given  in  my  last  lecture,  it  may  often  be  inevitable,  and  some- 
times desirable,  that  works  of  high  imaginative  range  and 
faculty  should  be  slightly  traced,  and  without  minuteness 
finished  ;  but  there  is  no  excuse  for  imperfection  in  a  por- 
trait, or  failure  of  attention  to  its  minor  accessories.  I  have 
long  ago  given,  for  one  instance  of  perfect  portraiture,  Hol- 
bein's George  Guysen,  at  Berlin,  quite  one  of  the  most  accom- 
plished pictures  in  the  world  ;  and  in  my  last  visit  to  Florence 
none  of  the  pictures  before  known  iu  the  Uflfizii  retained  their 
power  over  me  so  completely  as  a  portrait  of  a  lady  in  the 
Tribune,  which  is  placed  as  a  pendant  to  Eaphael's  Fornarina, 
and  has  always  been  attributed  to  Raphael,  being  without 
doubt  by  some  earlier  and  more  laborious  master  ;  and,  by 
whomsoever  it  may  be,  unrivalled  in  European  galleries  for 
its  faultless  and  unafiected  finish. 

I  may  be  permitted  in  this  place  to  express  my  admiration 
of  the  kind  of  portraiture,  which  without  supporting  its  claim 
to  public  attention  by  the  celebrity  of  its  subjects,  renders 
the  pictures  of  Mr.  Stacy  Marks  so  valuable  as  epitomes  and 
types  of  English  life.  No  portrait  of  any  recognized  master 
in  science  could  be  more  interesting  than  the  gentle  Professor 
in  this  year's  Academy,  from  whom  even  a  rebelliously  super- 
ficial person  like  myself  might  be  content  to  receive  instruc- 
tion in  the  mysteries  of  anatomy.  Many  an  old  traveler's  re- 
membrances were  quite  pathetically  touched  by  his  monu- 


CLASSIC  SCHOOLS  OF  PAINTINO.  45 

mental  record  of  the  'Three  Jolly  Postboys';  and  that  he 
sctarcely  paints  for  us  but  in  play,  is  our  own  fault.  Among 
all  the  endeavours  in  English  historical  painting  exhibited  in 
recent  j-ears,  quite  the  most  conscientious,  vivid  and  instruc- 
tive, was  Ml*.  Marks'  rendering  of  the  interview  between  Lord 
Say  and  Jack  Cade  ;  and  its  quiet  sincerity  was  only  the 
cause  of  its  being  passed  without  attention. 

In  turning  now  from  these  subjects  of  Gothic  art  to  con- 
sider the  classic  ideal,  though  I  do  so  in  painful  sense  of 
transgressing  the  limits  of  my  accurate  knowledge,  I  do  not 
feel  entirely  out  of  my  element,  because  in  some  degree 
I  claim  even  Sir  Frederick  Leighton  as  a  kindred  Goth.  For, 
if  you  will  overpass  quickly  in  your  minds  what  you  remem- 
ber of  the  treasures  of  Greek  antiquity,  you  will  find  that, 
among  them  all,  you  can  get  no  notion  of  what  a  Greek  little 
girl  was  like.  Matronly  Junes,  and  tremendous  Demeters, 
and  Gorgonian  Minervas,  as  many  as  you  please  ;  but  for  my 
own  part,  always  speaking  as  a  Goth,  I  had  much  rather  have 
had  some  idea  of  the  Spartan  Helen  dabbling  with  Castor 
and  Pollux  in  the  Earotas, — none  of  them  over  ten  years  old. 
And  it  is  with  extreme  gratitude,  therefore,  and  unqualified 
admiration,  that  I  find  Sir  Frederick  condescending  from  the 
majesties  of  Olympus  to  the  worship  of  these  unappalling 
powers,  which,  heaven  be  thanked,  are  as  brightly  Anglo-Saxon 
as  Hellenic  ;  and  painting  for  us,  with  a  soft  charm  peculiarly 
his  own,  the  witchcraft  and  the  wonderf ulness  of  childhood. 

I  have  no  right  whatever  to  speak  of  the  works  of  higher 
effort  and  claim,  which  have  been  the  result  of  his  acutely  ob- 
servant and  enthusiastic  study  of  the  organism  of  the  human 
body.  I  am  indeed  able  to  recognize  his  skill ;  but  have  no 
sympathy  with  the  subjects  that  admit  of  its  display.  I  am 
enabled,  however,  to  show  you  with  what  integrity  of  applica- 
tion it  has  been  gained,  by  his  kindness  in  lending  me  for  the 
Ruskin  school  two  perfect  early  drawings,  one  of  a  lemon 
tree, — and  another,  of  the  same  date,  of  a  Byzantine  well, 
which  determine  for  you  without  appeal,  the  question  respect- 
ing necessity  of  delineation  as  the  first  skill  of  a  painter.  Of 
all  our  present  masters,  Sir  Frederick  Leighton  delights  most 


46  TUE  ART  OF  ENGLAND. 

in  softly-blended  colours,  and  Lis  ideal  of  beauty  is  more 
neai'ly  that  of  Correggio  than  any  seen  since  Correggio's  time. 
But  you  see  by  what  precision  of  tei'miual  outline  he  at  first 
restrained,  and  exalted,  his  gift  of  beautiful  vaghezza. 

Nor  is  the  lesson  one  whit  less  sternly  conveyed  to  you  by 
the  work  of  M.  Alma  Tadema,  who  differs  from  all  the  artists 
I  have  ever  known,  except  John  Lewis,  in  the  gradual  in- 
crease of  technical  accuracy,  which  attends  and  enhances 
together  the  expanding  range  of  his  dramatic  invention  ;  while 
every  year  he  display's  more  varied  and  complex  powers  of 
minute  draughtsmanship,  more  especially  in  architectural  de- 
tail, wherein,  somewhat  priding  myself  as  a  specialty,  I  never- 
theless receive  continual  lessons  from  him ;  except  only  in  this 
one  point, — that,  with  me,  the  translucency  and  glow  of 
marble  is  the  principal  character  of  its  substance,  while  with 
M.  Tadema  it  is  chiefly  the  superficial  lustre  and  veining 
which  seem  to  attract  him  ;  and  these,  also,  seen,  not  in  the 
strength  of  southern  sun,  but  in  the  cool  twilight  of  luxurious 
chambers.  With  which  insufficient,  not  to  say  degrading, 
choice  of  architectural  colour  and  shade,  there  is  a  fallacy  in 
his  classic  idealism,  against  which,  while  I  respectfully  ac- 
knowledge his  scholarship  and  his  earnestness,  it  is  necessary 
that  30U  should  be  gravely  and  conclusively  warned. 

I  said  that  the  Greeks  studied  the  body  glorified  by  war  ; 
but  much  more,  remember,  they  studied  the  mind  glorified  by 
it.  It  is  the  [i.rjvi'i  k)(L\rfo%,  not  the  muscular  force,  which  the 
good  beauty  of  the  body  itself  signifies  ;  and  yon  may  most 
strictly  take  the  Homeric  words  describing  the  aspect  of 
Achilles  showing  himself  on  the  Greek  rampart  as  represent- 
ative of  the  total  Greek  ideal.  Learn  by  heart,  unforgettably, 
the  seven  lines — 

Aiirap  'Ax'AAei/s  eopro  Ail  (j)i\os  '  afi<bl  S'  Adiiirq 
"Cluots  iv&iiiOiai  /3oA*  klyiha  Ovaaavoiaaav  • 
'fi.tji<p\  5e  OL  Ke<pa\tj  ve<pos  eo'TeDe  S?a  Oedwi/ 
Xp^<y'fov,  €K  5"  ai/rov  SaTe  <p\6ya  Traa<pav6ct><Tav. 
''tt.v'io'xoi  S'  fKirXf]yiV,  ex«l  "CSov  '  aKafxarov  irvp 
^iivov  inrip  K((pa\ris  ufya6vfiou  TlTiXficovus 
Acuiifievov  •  rh  S'  tSaie  Ofh  yAavKwiris  'A0i7>oj  / 


CLASSIC  SCHOOLS  OF  rAINTING.  47 

which  are  enough  to  remind  you  of  the  whole  context,  and  to 
assure  you  of  the  association  of  light  and  cloud,  in  their  ter- 
rible mystery,  \dth.  the  truth  and  majesty  of  human  form,  in 
the  Greek  conception  ;  light  and  cloud,  whether  appointed 
either  to  show  or  to  conceal,  both  given  by  a  divine  spirit, 
according  to  the  bearing  of  your  own  universily  shield, 
"  Dominus  illuminatio."  In  all  ancient  heroic  subjects,  you 
will  find  these  two  ideas  of  light  and  mystery  combined  ;  and 
these  with  height  of  standing — the  Goddess  central  and  high 
in  the  pediment  of  her  temple,  the  hero  on  his  chariot,  or  the 
Egj'ptian  king  colossal  above  his  captives. 

Now  observe,  that  whether  of  Greek  or  Roman  life,  M. 
Alma  Tadema's  pictures  are  always  in  twilight — interiors, 
viro  crr/x/xiytt  ctklo..  I  don't  know  if  3'ou  saw  the  collection  of  them 
last  year  at  the  Grosvenor,  but  with  that  universal  twilight 
there  was  also  universal  crouching  or  lolling  posture, — either 
in  fear  or  laziness.  And  the  most  gloomy,  the  most  crouch- 
ing, the  most  dastardly  of  all  these  representations  of  classic 
life,  was  the  little  picture  called  the  Pyrrhic  Dance,  of  which 
the  general  effect  was  exactly  like  a  microscopic  view  of  a 
small  detachment  of  black-beetles,  in  search  of  a  dead  rat. 

I  have  named  to  you  the  Achillean  splendour  as  primary 
t}-pe  of  Greek  war  ;  but  you  need  only  glance,  in  your  mem- 
ory, for  a  few  instants,  over  the  habitual  expressions  of  all 
the  great  poets,  to  recognize  the  magnificence  of  light,  terrible 
or  hopeful ;  the  radiance  of  armour,  over  all  the  field  of  battle, 
or  flaming  at  every  gate  of  the  city  ;  as  in  the  blazoned  her- 
aldry of  the  seven  against  Thebes, — or  beautiful,  as  in  the  gol- 
den armour  of  Glaucus,  down  to  the  baser  brightness  for 
which  Camilla  died  :  remember  also  that  the  ancient  Doric 
dance  was  strictly  the  dance  of  Apollo  ;  seized  again  by  your 
own  mightiest  poet  for  the  chief  remnant  of  the  past  in  the 
Greece  of  to-day — 

"  You  have  the  Pyrrhic  dance  as  yet ; 
Where  is  the  Pyrrhic  phalanx  gone  ?  " 

And  this  is  just  the  piece  of  classic  life  which  your  nine- 
teenth century  fancy  sets  forth  under  its  fuliginous  and  can- 
thturoid  disfigurement  and  disgrace. 


48  THE  ART  OF  ENGLAND. 

I  say,  your  nineteenth  century  fancy,  for  M.  Alma  Tadema 
does  but  represent — or  rather,  has  haplessly  got  himself  en- 
tangled in, — the  vast  vortex  of  recent  Italian  and  French  revo- 
lutionary rage  against  all  that  resists,  or  ever  did  resist,  its 
license  ;  in  a  word,  against  all  priesthood  and  knighthood. 

The  Roman  state,  observe,  in  the  strength  of  it  expresses 
both  these  ;  the  orders  of  chivalry  do  not  rise  out  of  the  dis- 
ciplining of  the  hordes  of  Tartar  horsemen,  but  by  the  Chris- 
tianizing of  the  Roman  eques  ;  and  the  noble  priesthood  of 
Western  Christendom  is  not,  in  the  heart  of  it  hieratic,  but 
pontifical.  And  it  is  the  last  corruption  of  this  Roman  state, 
and  its  Bacchanalian  phrenzy,  which  M.  Alma  Tadema  seems 
to  hold  it  his  heavenly  mission  to  pourtray. 

I  have  no  mind,  as  I  told  you,  to  darken  the  healthy  work 
I  hope  to  lead  you  into  by  any  frequent  reference  to  antago- 
nist influences.  But  it  is  absolutely  necessary  for  me  to-day 
to  distinguish,  once  for  all,  what  it  is  above  everything  your 
duty,  as  scholars  in  Oxford,  to  know  and  love — the  perpetual 
laws  of  classic  literature  and  art,  the  laws  of  the  Muses,  from 
what  has  of  late  again  infected  the  schools  of  Europe  under 
the  pretence  of  classic  study,  being  indeed  only  the  continu- 
ing poison  of  the  Renaissance,  and  ruled,  not  by  the  choir  of 
the  Muses,  but  by  the  spawn  of  the  Python.  And  this  I  have 
been  long-minded  to  do  ;  but  am  only  now  enabled  to  do 
completely  and  clearly,  and  beyond  your  doubt,  by  having  ob- 
tained for  you  the  evidence,  unmistakable,  of  what  remains 
classic  from  the  ancient  life  of  Italy — the  ancient  Etruscan 
life,  down  to  this  day ;  which  is  the  perfection  of  humility, 
modesty,  and  serviceableness,  as  opposed  to  the  character 
which  remains  in  my  mind  as  the  total  impression  of  the 
Academy  and  Grosvenor, — that  the  young  people  of  this  day 
desire  to  be  painted  first  as  proud,  saying.  How  grand  I  am ; 
next  as  immodest,  saying.  How  beautiful  I  am  ;  lastly  as  idle, 
saying,  I  am  able  to  pay  for  flunkeys,  and  never  did  a  stroke 
of  work  in  my  life. 

Since  the  day  of  the  opening  of  the  great  Manchester  ex- 
hibition in  1851,  every  Englishman,  desiring  to  express  inter- 
est in  the  arts,  considers  it  his  duty  to  assert  with  Keats,  that 


CLASSIC  SCHOOLS  OF  PAINTING.  49 

a  thing  of  beauty  is  a  joy  for  ever.  I  do  not  know  in  what 
sense  the  saying  was  understood  by  the  Manchester  school. 
But  this  I  know,  that  what  joy  may  remain  still  for  you  and 
for  your  children — in  the  fields,  the  homes,  and  the  churches 
of  England — you  must  win  by  otherwise  reading  the  falla- 
cious line.  A  beautiful  thing  may  exist  but  for  a  moment,  as 
a  reality  ; — it  exists  for  ever  as  a  testimony.  To  the  law  and  to 
the  witness  of  it  the  nations  must  appeal,  "  in  secula  seculo- 
rum  "  ;  and  in  very  deed  and  very  truth,  a  thing  of  beauty  is 
a  law  for  ever. 

That  is  the  true  meaning  of  classic  art  and  of  classic  litera- 
ture ; — not  the  license  of  pleasure,  but  the  law  of  goodness ; 
and  if,  of  the  two  words,  KaAos  i<aya.66<;,  one  can  be  left  un- 
spoken, as  implied  b}'  the  other,  it  is  the  first,  not  the  last. 
It  is  written  that  the  Creator  of  all  things  beheld  them— ^ not 
in  that  they  were  beautiful,  but  in  that  the}'  were  good. 

This  law  of  beauty  may  be  one  for  aught  we  know,  fulfill- 
ing itself  more  perfectly  as  the  years  roll  on  ;  but  at  least  it 
is  one  from  which  no  jot  shall  pass.  The  beauty  of  Greece 
depended  on  the  laws  of  Lycurgus  ;  the  beauty  of  Rome,  on 
those  of  Numa  ;  our  own,  on  the  laws  of  Christ.  On  all  the 
beautiful  features  of  men  and  women,  throughout  the  ages, 
are  written  the  solemnities  and  majesty  of  the  law  they  knew, 
with  the  chanty  and  meekness  of  their  obedience  ;  on  all  un- 
beautiful  featui'es  are  written  either  ignoi'ance  of  the  law,  or 
the  malice  and  insolence  of  the  disobedience. 

I  showed  you,  on  the  occasion  of  ray  first  address,  a  draw- 
ing of  the  death  of  a  Tuscan  girl, — a  saint,  in  the  full  sense  of 
that  word,  such  as  there  have  been,  and  still  are,  among  the 
Christian  women  of  all  nations.  I  bring  you  to-day  the  por- 
trait of  a  Tuscan  Sibyl, — such  as  there  have  been,  and  still 
are.  She  herself  is  still  living  ;  her  portrait  is  the  first  draw- 
ing illustrating  the  book  of  the  legends  of  the  peasantry  of  Val 
d'Arno,  which  I  obtained  possession  of  in  Florence  last  year ; 
of  which  book  I  will  now  read  you  part  of  the  preface,  in 
which  the  authoress  gives  you  the  stoiy  of  the  life  of  this 
Etrurian  Sibyl. 

"  Beatrice  was  the  daughter  of  a  stonemason  at  Melo,  a 
4 


50  TEE  ART  OF  ENGLAND. 

little  village  of  not  very  easy  access  on  the  mountain-side 
above  Cutigliano  ;  and  her  mother  having  died  in  Beatrice's 
infancy,  she  became  from  early  childhood,  the  companion  and 
assistant  of  her  father,  accompanying  him  to  his  ^vinter 
labours  in  the  Maremma,  and  as  she  grew  stronger,  helping 
him  at  his  work  by  bringing  him  stones  for  the  walls  and 
bridges  which  he  built — carrj'ing  them  balanced  on  her 
head.  She  had  no  education,  in  the  common  sense  of  the 
word,  never  learning  even  the  alphabet ;  but  she  had  a  won- 
derful memory,  and  could  sing  or  recite  long  pieces  of  poetiy. 
As  a  girl,  she  used  in  summer  to  follow  the  sheep,  with  her 
distaff  at  her  waist,  and  would  fill  up  her  hours  of  solitude  by 
singing  such  ballads  as  '  The  War  of  St.  Michael  and  the  Dra- 
gon, '  The  Creation  of  the  World,  and  the  Fall  of  Man,'  or, 
'  The  History  of  San  Pelegrino,  son  of  Romano,  King  of  Scot- 
land : '  and  now,  in  her  old  age,  she  knows  nearly  all  the 
New  Testament  history,  and  much  of  the  Old,  in  a  poetical 
form.  She  w^as  very  beautiful  then,  they  say  ;  with  curling 
black  hair  and  wonderful-inspired  looking  eyes,  and  there  must 
always  have  been  a  great  charm  in  her  voice  and  smile ;  so  it  is 
no  great  wonder  that  Matteo  Bernardi,  much  older  than  her- 
self, and  owner  of  a  fine  farm  at  Pian  degli  Ontani,  and  of 
many  cattle,  chose  rather  to  maiTy  the  shepherd  girl  who 
could  sing  so  sweetly,  than  another  woman  whom  his  family 
liked  better,  and  who  might  perhaps  have  brought  him  more 
increase  of  worldly  prosperity.  On  Beatrice's  wedding-day 
according  to  the  old  custom  of  the  country,  one  or  two 
poets  improvised  verses  suitable  to  the  occasion  ;  and  as  she 
listened  to  them,  suddenly  she  felt  in  herself  a  new  power, 
and  began  to  sing  the  poetry  which  was  then  born  in  her 
mind,  and  having  once  begun,  found  it  impossible  to  stop, 
and  kept  on  singing  a  great  while,  so  that  all  were  astonished, 
and  her  uncle,  who  was  present,  said — "Beatrice,  you  have 
deceived  me  !  if  I  had  known  what  yon  were,  I  would  have 
put  you  in  a  convent."  From  that  time  forth  she  was  the 
great  poetess  of  all  that  part  of  the  country  ;  and  was  sent  for 
to  sing  and  recite  at  weddings,  and  other  festivals,  for  many 
miles  around  :  and  perhaps  she  might  have  been  happy,  but 


CLASSIC  SCHOOLS  OF  PAINTING.  ol 

her  husband's  sister,  Barbara,  who  lived  in  the  house,  and 
who  had  not  approved  of  the  marriage,  tried  very  wickedly  to 
set  her  brother  against  his  wife,  and  to  some  extent  succeeded. 
He  tried  to  stop  her  sieging,  which  seemed  to  him  a  sort  of 
madness,  and  at  times  he  treated  her  with  great  imkinduess  ; 
but  sing  she  must  and  sing  she  did,  for  it  was  what  the  Lord 
made  her  for,  and  she  lived  down  all  their  dislike  ;  her  hus- 
band loved  her  in  his  old  age,  and  Barbai-a,  whom  she  nursed 
with  motherly  kindness  through  a  long  and  most  distressing 
illness,  was  her  friend  before  she  died.  Beatrice  is  still  liv- 
ing, at  a  great  age  now,  but  still  retaining  much  of  her  old 
beauty  and  brilliancy,  and  is  waited  on  and  cared  for  with 
much  affection  by  a  pretty  granddaughter  bearing  the  same 
name  as  herself." 

There  are  just  one  or  two  points  I  want  you  to  note  in  this 
biography,  si^eciallj'. 

The  gii'l  is  put,  in  her  youth,  to  three  kinds  of  noble  work. 
She  is  a  shepherdess,  like  St.  Genevieve  ;  a  spinner  and  knit- 
ter, hke  Queen  Bertha  ;  chiefly  and  most  singularly,  she  is 
put  to  help  her  father  in  the  pontifical  art  of  bridge-building. 
Gj'mnastic  to  purpose,  you  observe.  In  the  last,  or  last  but 
one,  number  of  your  favourite  English  chronicle,  the  proud 
mother  says  of  her  well-trained  daughters,  that  there  is  not 
one  who  covdd  not  knock  down  her  own  father :  here  is  a 
strong  daughter  who  can  help  her  father — a  Grace  Darling  of 
the  rivers  instead  of  the  sea. 

These  are  the  first  three  things  to  be  noted  of  her.  Next 
the  material  of  her  education, — not  in  words,  but  in  thoughts, 
and  the  greatest  of  thoughts.  You  continually  hear  that 
Roman  Catholics  are  not  allowed  to  read  the  Bible.  Here  is  a 
little  shepherdess  who  has  it  in  her  heart. 

Next,  the  time  of  her  inspiration, — at  her  wedding  feast ; 
as  in  the  beginning  of  her  Master's  ministry,  at  Cana.  Here 
is  right  honour  pvit  upon  marriage  ;  and,  in  spite  of  the  efibrts 
made  to  disturb  her  household  peace,  it  was  entirely  blessed 
to  her  in  her  children :  nor  to  her  alone,  but  to  us,  and  to 
myriads  with  us  ;  for  her  second  son,  Angelo,  is  the  original  of 
the  four  drawings  of  St.  Christopher  which  illustrate  the  cen- 


53  IHE  ART  OF  ENGLAND. 

tral  poem  in  Miss  Alexander's  book  ;  and  which  are,  to  the  best 
of  my  knowledge,  the  most  beautiful  renderings  of  the  legend 
hitherto  attained  by  religious  imagination. 

And  as  you  dwell  on  these  portraits  of  a  noble  Tuscan  peas- 
ant, the  son  of  a  noble  Christian  mother, — learn  this  farther 
and  final  distinction  between  the  greatest  art  of  past  time, 
and  that  which  has  become  possible  now  and  in  future. 

The  Greek,  I  said,  pourtrayed  the  body  and  the  mind  of 
man,  glorified  in  mortal  War.  But  to  us  is  given  the  task  of 
holier  portraiture,  of  the  countenance  and  the  heart  of  man, 
glorified  by  the  peace  of  God. 

Whether  Francesca's  book  is  to  be  eventually  kept  together 
or  distributed  I  do  not  yet  know.  But  if  distributed,  the  draw- 
ings of  St.  Christopher  must  remain  in  Oxford,  being  as  I  have 
said,  the  noblest  statements  I  have  ever  seen  of  the  unchange- 
able meaning  of  this  Ford  of  ours,  for  all  who  pass  it  honestly, 
and  do  not  contrive  false  traverse  for  themselves  over  a  widened 
Magdalen  Bridge.  That  ford,  gentlemen,  for  ever, — know 
what  you  may, — hope  what  you  may, — believe  or  deny  what 
you  may, — you  have  to  pass  barefoot.  For  it  is  a  baptism  as 
well  as  a  ford,  and  the  waves  of  it,  as  the  sands,  are  holy. 
Your  youthful  days  in  this  place  are  to  you  the  dipping  of 
your  feet  in  the  brim  of  the  river,  which  is  to  be  manfully 
stemmed  by  you  all  your  days  ;  not  drifted  with, — nor  toyed 
upon.  Fallen  leaves  enough  it  is  strewn  with,  of  the  flowers 
of  the  forest ;  moraine  enough  it  bears,  of  the  ruin  of  the 
brave.  Your  task  is  to  cross  it ;  your  doom  may  be  to  go  down 
with  it,  to  the  depths  out  of  which  there  is  no  crying.  Trav- 
erse it,  staff  in  hand,  and  with  loins  girded,  and  with  what- 
soever law  of  Heaven  you  know,  for  your  light.  On  the  othei 
side  is  the  Promised  Land,  the  Land  of  the  Leal. 


ITAIRY  Land.  63 

LECTUEE  IV. 

Fairy  Land. 

MES.    ALLINGHAM   AND    KATE   GREENAWAY. 

We  liave  hitherto  been  considering  the  uses  of  legendary 
art  to  grown  pei'sons,  and  to  the.  most  learned  and  power- 
ful minds.  To-day  I  will  endeavour  to  note  with  you  some  of 
the  least  controvertible  facts  respecting  its  uses  to  children  ; 
and  to  obtain  your  consent  to  the  main  general  principles  on 
which  I  believe  it  should  be  offered  to  them. 

Here,  however,  I  enter  on  ground  where  I  must  guard  care- 
fully against  being  misled  by  my  own  predilections,  and  in 
which  also  the  questions  at  issue  are  extremely  difficult,  be- 
cause most  of  them  new.  It  is  only  in  recent  times  that  pict- 
ures have  become  familiar  means  of  household  pleasure  and 
education  :  only  in  our  own  days — na}',  even  within  the  last 
ten  3'ears  of  those,  that  the  means  of  illustration  by  colour- 
printing  have  been  brought  to  perfection,  and  art  as  exquisite 
as  we  need  desire  to  see  it,  placed,  if  our  school-boards  choose 
to  have  it  so,  within  the  command  of  every  nursery  gov- 
erness. 

Having  then  the  colour-print,  the  magic-lantern,  the  electric- 
light,  and  the — to  an}'  row  of  ciphers — maguifying,  lens,  it 
becomes  surely  very  interesting  to  consider  what  we  may  most 
wisely  I'epresent  to  children  by  means  so  potent,  so  dazzling, 
and,  if  we  will,  so  faithful.  I  said  just  now  tbat  I  must  guai*d 
carefully  against  being  misled  by  my  own  predilections,  be- 
cause having  been  myself  brought  up  principally  on  fairy 
legends,  my  first  impulse  would  be  to  insist  upon  every  story 
we  tell  to  a  child  being  untrue,  and  every  scene  we  paint  for  it, 
iuipossible.  But  I  have  been  led,  as  often  before  confessed, 
gravely  to  doubt  the  expediency  of  some  parts  of  my  early 
trainiug  ;  and  perhaps  some  day  may  try  to  divest  myself 
whollj',  for  an  hour,  of  these  dangerous  recollections  ;  and 
prepare  a  lecture  for  you  in  which  I  will  take  Mr.  Gradgrind 


54  THE  ART  OF  ENGLAND. 

on  his  own  terms,  and  consider  how  far,  making  it  a  rule  that 
we  exhibit  nothing  but  facts,  we  could  decorate  our  pages  of 
history,  and  illuminate  the  slides  of  our  lantern,  in  a  manner 
still  sufficiently  attractive  to  childish  taste.  For  indeed  poor 
Louise  and  her  brother,  kneeling  to  peep  under  the  fringes  of 
the  circus-tent,  are  as  much  in  search  after  facts  as  the  most 
scientific  of  us  aU !  A  circus-rider,  with  his  hoop,  is  as  much 
a  fact  as  the  planet  Saturn  and  his  ring,  and  exemplifies  a 
great  many  more  laws  of  motion,  both  moral  and  physical ; 
nor  are  any  descriptions  of  the  Valley  of  Diamonds,  or  the 
Lake  of  the  Black  Islands,  in  the  '  Arabian  Nights,'  any- 
thing like  so  Avonderful  as  the  scenes  of  California  and  the 
Eocky  Mountains  which  you  may  find  described  in  the  Apiil 
number  of  the  'Cornhill  Magazine,'  under  the  heading  of 
'  Early  Spring  in  California  ' ;  and  may  see  represented  with 
most  sincere  and  passionate  enthusiasm  by  the  American  land- 
scape painter,  Mr.  Moran,  in  a  survey  lately  published  by  the 
Government  of  the  United  States. 

Scenes  majestic  as  these,  pourtrayed  with  mere  and  pure 
fidelity  by  such  scientific  means  as  I  have  referred  to,  would 
form  a  code  of  geographic  instruction  beyond  all  the  former 
grasp  of  young  people  ;  and  a  source  of  entertainment, — I  had 
nearly  said,  and  most  people  who  had  not  watched  the  minds 
of  children  carefully,  might  think, — inexhaustible.  Much,  in- 
deed, I  should  myself  hope  from  it,  but  by  no  means  an  infini- 
tude of  entertainment.  For  it  is  quite  an  inexorable  law  of 
this  poor  human  nature  of  ours,  that  in  the  development  of 
its  healthy  infancy,  it  is  put  by  Heaven  under  the  absolute 
necessity  of  using  its  imagination  as  well  as  its  lungs  and  itc 
legs  ; — that  it  is  forced  to  develop  its  power  of  invention,  as 
a  bird  its  feathers  of  flight ;  that  no  toy  you  can  bestow  will 
supersede  the  pleasure  it  has  in  fancying  something  that  isn't 
there  ;  and  the  most  instructive  histories  you  can  compile  for 
it  of  the  wonders  of  the  world  will  never  conquer  the  interest 
of  the  tale  which  a  clever  child  can  teU  itself,  concerning  the 
shipwreck  of  a  rose-leaf  in  the  shallows  of  a  rivulet. 

One  of  the  most  curious  proofs  of  the  need  to  children  of 
this  exercise  of  the  inventive  and  believing  power, — the  besoin 


FAIRY  LAND.  55 

de  croire,  whicli  precedes  the  besoin  cVaimer,  you  will  find  in 
the  way  you  destroy  the  vitality  of  a  toy  to  them,  by  bringing 
it  too  near  the  imitation  of  life.  You  never  find  a  child  make 
a  pet  of  a  mechanical  mouse  that  runs  about  the  floor — of  a 
poodle  that  yelps — of  a  tumbler  who  jumps  upon  wires.  The 
child  falls  in  love  with  a  quiet  thing,  with  an  ugly  one — nay, 
it  may  be,  with  one,  to  us,  totally  devoid  of  meaning.  My 
little — ever-so-many-times-grand — cousin,  Lily,  took  a  bit  of 
stick  with  a  round  knob  at  the  end  of  it  for  her  doll  one  day ; 
— nursed  it  through  any  number  of  illnesses  with  the  most 
tender  solicitude  ;  and,  on  the  deeply-important  occasion  of 
its  having  a  new  nightgown  made  for  it,  bent  down  her 
mother's  head  to  receive  the  confidential  and  timid  whispei- — 
"  Mamma,  perhaj^s  it  had  better  have  no  sleeves,  because,  as 
Bibsey  has  no  arms,  she  mightn't  like  it." 

I  must  take  notice  here,  but  only  in  passing, — the  subject 
being  one  to  be  followed  out  afterwards  in  studying  more 
grave  branches  of  art, — that  the  human  mind  in  its  full  energy 
having  thus  the  power  of  believing  simply  what  it  likes,  the 
responsibilities  and  the  fatalities  attached  to  the  effort  of  Faith 
are  greater  than  those  belonging  to  bodily  deed,  precisely  in 
the  degree  of  their  voluntariness.  A  man  can't  always  do  what 
he  likes,  but  he  can  always yancy  what  he  likes  ;  and  he  may 
be  forced  to  do  what  he  doesn't  like,  but  he  can't  be  forced, 
to  fancy  what  he  doesn't  like. 

I  use  for  the  moment,  the  word  '  to  fancy  '  instead  of  '  to 
believe,'  because  the  whole  subject  of  Fidelity  and  Infidelity 
has  been  made  a  mere  mess  of  quarrels  and  blunders  by  our 
habitually  forgetting  that  the  proper  power  of  Faith  is  to  trust 
without  evidence,  not  with  evidence.  You  perpetually  hear 
people  say,  '  I  won't  believe  this  or  that  unless  you  give  me 
evidence  of  it.'  Why,  if  you  give  them  evidence  of  it,  they 
know  it, — they  don't  believe,  any  more.  A  man  doesn't  believe 
there's  any  danger  in  nitro-glycerine  ;  at  last  he  gets  his  par- 
lour-door blown  into  next  street.  He  is  then  better  informed, 
on  the  subject,  but  the  time  for  belief  is  past. 

Only,  observe,  I  don't  say  that  you  can  fancy  what  you  like, 
to  the  degi'ee  of  receiving  it  for  truth.     Heaven  forbid  wo 


56  THE  ART  OF  ENGLAND. 

should  have  a  powei*  such  as  that,  for  it  would  be  one  of  vol-" 
untaiy  madness.  But  we  are,  in  the  most  natural  and  rational 
health,  able  to  foster  the  fancy,  up  to  the  point  of  influencing 
our  feelings  and  character  in  the  strongest  way  ;  and  for  the 
strength  of  that  healthy  imaginative  faculty,  and  all  the  blend- 
ing of  the  good  and  grace,  "  richiesto  al  vero  ed  al  trastullo,"  * 
^^^  are  wholly  responsible.  We  maj'  cultivate  it  to  what  bright- 
ness we  choose,  merely  by  living  in  a  quiet  relation  with  nat- 
ural objects  and  great  and  good  people,  past  or  present ;  and 
we  may  extinguish  it  to  the  last  snuff,  merely  by  living  in 
town,  and  reading  the  '  Times '  every  morning. 

"We  are  scarcely  sufficiently  conscious,"  says  Mr.  Kingialce, 
with  his  delicate  precision  of  serenity  in  satire,  "  scarcely  suf- 
ficiently conscious  in  England,  of  the  great  debt  we  owe  to  the 
it'i.se  and  watchful  press  \chich  presides  over  the  formation  of  our 
opinions  ;  and  which  brings  about  this  splendid  result,  namely, 
that  in  matters  of  belief,  the  humblest  of  us  are  lifted  up  to 
the  level  of  the  most  sagacious,  so  that  really  a  simple  Cornet 
in  the  blues  is  no  more  likely  to  entertain  a  foolish  belief  about 
ghosts,  or  witchcraft,  or  any  other  supernatural  topic,  than 
the  Lord  High  Chancellor,  or  the  Leader  of  the  House  of 
Commons." 

And  thus,  at  the  present  day,  for  the  education  or  the  ex- 
tinction of  the  Fancy,  we  are  absolutely  left  to  our  choice. 
For  its  occupation,  not  wholly  so,  yet  in  a  far  greater  measure 
than  we  know.  Mr.  Wordsworth  speaks  of  it  as  only  impossible 
to  "  have  sight  of  Pi-oteus  rising  from  the  sea,"  becau-se  the 
woiid  is  too  much  with  us ;  also  Mr.  Kingiake,  though  in  an- 
other place,  he  calls  it  '•  a  vain  and  heathenish  longing  to  be 
fed  with  divine  counsels  from  the  lips  of  Pallas  Athene," — yet 
is  far  happier  than  the  most  scientific  traveller  could  be  in  a 
trigonometric  measurement,  when  he  discovers  that  Neptune 
could  really  have  seen  Troy  from  the  top  o£  Samothrace :  and 
I  believe  that  we  should  many  of  us  find  it  an  extremely  whole- 
some and  useful  method  of  treating  our  ordinary  affairs,  if  be- 
fore deciding,  even  upon  very  minor  points  of  conduct  admit- 
ting of  prudential  and  conscientious  debate,  we  were  in  the  habi» 

*  Dante,  Purg.  xiv.  93. 


FAIRYLAND.  i> , 

of  imagining  that  Pallas  Athene  was  actually  in  the  room  with 
us,  or  at  least  outside  the  window  in  the  form  of  a  swallow, 
and  permitted  us,  on  the  condition  always  of  instant  obedience, 
to  ask  her  advice  upon  the  matter. 

Here  ends  my  necessary  parenthesis,  with  its  suspicion  of 
preachment,  for  which  I  crave  pardon,  and  I  return  to  my 
proper  subject  of  to-day, — the  art  which  intends  to  address 
only  childish  imagination,  and  whose  object  is  primarily  to 
entertain  with  grace. 

With  grace  : — I  insist  much  on  this  latter  word.  We  may 
allow  the  advocates  of  a  material  philosophy  to  insist  that 
every  wild-weed  tradition  of  fairies,  gnomes,  and  sylphs 
should  be  well  ploughed  out  of  a  child's  mind  to  prepare  it 
for  the  good  seed  of  the  Gospel  of — Disgrsice  :  but  no  defence 
can  be  offered  for  the  presentation  of  these  ideas  to  its  mind 
in  a  form  so  vulgarized  as  to  defame  and  pollute  the  master- 
pieces of  former  literature.  It  is  perfectly  easy  to  convince 
the  young  proselyte  of  science  that  a  cobweb  on  the  toj)  of  a 
thistle  cannot  be  commanded  to  catch  a  honey-bee  for  him, 
without  introducing  a  dance  of  ungainh'  fairies  on  the  site  of 
the  cabstand  under  the  Westminster  clock  tower,  or  making 
the  Queen  of  them  fall  in  love  with  the  sentiy  on  guard. 

With  grace,  then,  assuredly, — and  I  think  we  may  add  also, 
with  as  much  seriousness  as  an  entirely  fictitious  subject  may 
admit  of — seeing  that  it  touches  the  border  of  that  higher 
world  Avhich  is  not  fictitious.  We  are  all  perhaps  too  much 
in  the  habit  of  thinking  the  scenes  of  burlesque  in  the  '  Mid- 
summer Night's  Dream '  exemplary  of  Shakespeare's  general 
treatment  of  fairy  character  :  we  should  always  remember 
that  he  places  the  most  beautiful  words  descriptive  of  virgin 
purity  which  English  poetry  possesses,  in  the  mouth  of  the 
Fairy  King,  and  that  to  the  Lord  of  Fancies  he  entrusts  the 
praise  of  the  conquest  of  Fancy, — 

"  In  maiden  meditation, — Fancy  free." 

Still  less  should  we  forget  the  function  of  household  benedic- 
tion,  attributed  to  them  always  by   happy  national   super- 


58  THE  ART  OF  ENGLAND. 

stition,    and    summed    in    the    closing    lines   of    the   same 
play,— 

"  With  this  field-dew  consecrate, 
Every  fairy  take  his  gait  ; 
And  each  several  chamber  bless, 
Through  this  palace,  with  sweet  peace." 

Witli  seriousness  then, — but  only,  I  repeat,  such  as  entirely 
fictitious  elements  properly  admit  of.  The  general  grace  and 
sweetness  of  Scott's  moorland  fairy,  'The  White  Lady,'  failed 
of  appeal  to  the  general  justice  of  public  taste,  because  in  two 
places  he  fell  into  the  exactly  opposite  errors  of  unbecoming 
jest,  and  too  far-venturing  solemnity.  The  ducking  of  the 
Sacristan  oflfended  even  his  most  loving  readers  ;  but  it  of- 
fended them  chiefly  for  a  reason  of  which  they  were  in  great 
part  unconscious,  that  the  jest  is  carried  out  in  the  course  of 
the  charge  with  which  the  fairy  is  too  gravely  entrusted,  to 
protect,  for  Mary  of  Avenel,  her  mother's  Bible. 

It  is  of  course  impossible,  in  studying  questions  of  this 
kind,  to  avoid  confusion  between  what  is  fit  in  literature  and 
in  art ;  the  leading  principles  are  the  same  in  both,  but  of 
course  much  may  be  allowed  to  the  nari'ator  which  is  im- 
possible or  forbidden  to  the  draughtsman.  And  I  necessarily 
take  examples  chiefly  from  literature,  because  the  greatest 
masters  of  story  have  never  disdained  the  playfully  super- 
natural elements  of  fairy-tale,  while  it  is  extremely  i*are  to 
find  a  good  painter  condescending  to  them, — or,  I  should 
rather  say,  contending  with  them,  the  task  being  indeed  one 
of  extreme  difficulty.  I  believe  Sir  Noel  Paton's  pictui-es  of 
the  Court  of  Titania,  and  Fairy  Raid,  are  all  we  possess  in 
which  the  accomplished  skill  of  painting  has  been  devoted  to 
fairy-subject ;  and  my  impression  when  I  saw  the  former 
picture — the  latter  I  grieve  not  yet  to  have  seen — was  that 
the  artist  intended  rather  to  obtain  leave  by  the  closeness  of 
ocular  distance  to  display  the  exquisite  power  of  minute  de- 
lineation, which  he  felt  in  historical  painting  to  be  inappli- 
cable, than  to  arrest,  either  in  his  own  mind  or  the  spectator's, 
even  a  momentary  credence  in  the  enchantment  of  fairy-wand 
and  faii-y-ring. 


FAIRY  LAND.  5t 

And  within  the  range  of  other  art  which  I  can  call  to  mind, 
touching  on  the  same  ground, — or  rather,  breathing  in  the 
same  air, — it  seems  to  me  a  sorroNvful  and  somewhat  unac- 
countable law  that  only  grotesque  or  terrible  fancies  present 
themselves  forcibly  enough,  in  these  admittedly  fabling  states 
of  the  imagination,  to  be  noted  with  the  pencil.  For  instajice, 
without  rating  too  highly  the  inventive  powers  of  the  old 
German  outline-draughtsman,  Retsch,  we  cannot  but  attribute 
to  him  a  very  real  gift  of  making  visibly  terrible  such  legend 
as  that  of  the  ballad  of  Leonora,  and  interpreting,  with  a  wild 
aspect  of  veracity,  the  passages  of  sorcery  in  '  Faust. '  But 
the  drawing  which  I  possess  by  his  hand,  of  the  Genius  of 
Poetry  riding  upon  a  swan,  could  not  be  placed  in  my  school 
with  any  hope  of  deepening  j^our  impression  either  of  the 
beauty  of  swans,  or  the  dignity  of  genii. 

You  must,  however,  always  carefully  distinguish  these  states 
of  gloomy  fantasy,  natural,  though  too  often  fatal,  to  men  of 
real  imagination, — the  spectra  which  appear,  whether  they 
desire  it  or  not, — to  men  like  Orcagna,  Durer,  Blake,  and 
Alfred  Rethel, — and  dwelt  upon  by  them,  in  the  hope  of  pro- 
ducing some  moral  impression  of  salutary  awe  by  their  record 
■ — as  in  Blake's  Book  of  Job.  in  Durer's  Apocalypse,  in  Rethel's 
Death  the  Avenger  and  Death  the  Friend, — and  more  nobly 
in  his  gi-and  design  of  Barbarossa  entering  the  grave  of 
Charlemagne  ; — carefully,  I  say,  you  must  distinguish  this 
natural  and  lofty  phase  of  visionary  terror,  from  the  coarse 
delight  in  mere  pain  and  crisis  of  danger,  which,  in  our  infidel 
art  and  literature  for  the  young,  fill^  our  books  of  travel  with 
pictures  of  alligators  swallowing  children,  hippopotami  up- 
setting canoes  full  of  savages,  bears  on  their  hind-legs  doing 
battle  with  northern  navigators,  avalanches  burying  Alpine 
villages,  and  the  like,  as  the  principal  attractions  of  the  vol- 
ume ;  not,  in  the  plurality  of  cases,  without  vileness  of  exag- 
geration which  amounts  to  misleading  falsehood  —  unless 
happily  pushed  to  the  point  where  mischief  is  extinguished 
by  absurdity.  In  Strahau's  'Magazine  for  the  Youth  of  all 
Ages,'  for  June,  1879,  at  page  328,  you  will  find  it  related,  in 
a  story  proposed  for  instruction  in  scientific  natural  histoiy, 


fiO  THE  ART  OF  ENGLAND. 

that  "  the  fugitives  saw  an  enormous  elephant  cross  the  clear, 
ing,  surrounded  by  ten  tigers,  some  clinging  to  its  back,  and 
others  keeping  alongside." 

I  may  in  this  place,  I  think,  best  introduce — though  again 
parent^ietically — the  suggestion  of  a  healthy  field  for  the  la- 
bouring scientific  fancy  which  remains  yet  unexhausted,  and 
I  believe  inexhaustible, — that  of  the  fable,  expanded  into  nar- 
rative, which  gives  a  true  account  of  the  life  of  animals,  sup- 
posing them  to  be  endowed  with  human  intelligence,  directed 
to  the  interests  of  their  animal  life.  I  said  just  now  that  I 
had  been  brought  up  upon  fairy  legends,  but  I  must  gratefully 
include,  under  the  general  title  of  these,  the  stories  in  '  Even- 
ings at  Home '  of  The  Transmigrations  of  Indur,  The  Discon- 
tented Squirrel,  The  Travelled  Ant,  The  Cat  and  her  Children, 
and  Little  Fido  ;  and  with  these,  one  now  quite  lost,  but 
which  I  am  minded  soon  to  reprint  for  my  younger  pupils, — 
The  History  of  a  Field-Mouse,  which  in  its  pretty  detail  is  no 
less  amusing,  and  much  more  natural,  than  the  town  and 
country  mice  of  Horace  and  Pope, — classic,  in  the  best  sense, 
though  these  will  always  be. 

There  is  the  more  need  that  some  true  and  pure  examples 
of  fable  in  this  kind  should  be  put  within  the  reach  of  chil- 
dren, because  the  wild  efforts  of  weak  writers  to  increase  their 
incomes  at  Christmas,  and  the  unscrupulous  encouragement  of 
them  by  competing  booksellers,  fill  our  nurseries  with  forms 
of  rubbish  which  are  on  the  one  side  destructive  of  the  mean- 
ing of  all  ancient  tradition,  and  on  the  other,  reckless  of  every 
really  interesting  truth,  in  exact  natural  history.  Only  the 
other  day,  in  examining  the  mixed  contents  of  a  somewhat 
capacious  nursery  bookcase,  the  first  volume  I  opened  was  a 
fairy  tale  in  which  the  benevolent  and  moral  fairy  drove  a 
"  matchless  pair  of  white  cockatrices."  I  might  take  up  all 
the  time  yet  left  for  this  lecture  in  exposing  to  you  the  min- 
gled folly  and  mischief  in  those  few  words  ; — the  pandering 
to  the  first  notion  of  vulgar  children  that  all  glory  consists  in 
driving  a  matchless  pair  of  something  or  other, — and  the  im- 
plied ignorance  in  which  only  such  a  book  could  be  pi-esented 
to  any  children,  of  the  most  solemn  of  scriptural  promises  tj 


FAIRY  LAND.  Gl 

them, —  ''tiie  weaned  child  shall  lay  his  hand  on  the  cocka- 
trice' den." 

And  the  next  book  I  examined  was  a  series  of  stories  im- 
poried  from  Japan,*  most  of  them  simply  sanguinary  and 
loathsome,  but  one  or  two  pretending  to  be  zoological — as, 
for  instance,  that  of  the  Battle  of  the  Ape  and  the  Crab,  of 
which  it  is  said  in  the  introduction  that  "  men  should  lay  it 
up  in  their  hearts,  and  teach  it  as  a  profitable  lesson  to  their 
children."  In  the  opening  of  this  profitable  story,  the  crab 
plants  a  "  persimmon  seed  in  his  garden "  (the  reader  is  not 
informed  what  manner  of  fruit  the  persimmon  may  be),  and 
watches  the  growth  of  the  tree  which  springs  from  it  with 
great  delight ;  being,  we  are  told  in  another  paragraph,  "  a 
simple-minded  creature." 

I  do  not  know  whether  this  conception  of  character  iu  the 
great  zodiacal  crustacean  is  supposed  to  be  scientific  or  sesthet- 
ic, — but  I  hope  that  British  children  at  the  seaside  are  capa- 
ble of  inventing  somewhat  better  stories  of  crabs  for  them- 
selves ;  and  if  they  would  farther  know  the  foreign  manners 
of  the  sidelong-pacing  people,  let  me  ask  them  to  look  at  the 
account  given  by  Lord  George  Campbell,  in  his  '  Log  Letters 
from  the  Challenger,'  of  his  landing  on  the  island  of  St.  Paul, 
and  of  the  manner  in  which  the  quite  unsophisticated  crabs  of 
that  locality  succeeded  first  in  stealing  his  fishbait,  and  then 
making  him  lose  his  temper,  to  a  degree  extremely  unbecom- 
ing iu  a  British  nobleman.  They  will  not,  after  the  perusal  of 
that  piquant — or  perhaps  I  should  rather  say,  pincant, — nar- 
rative, be  disposed,  whatever  other  virtues  they  may  possess, 
to  asci'ibe  to  the  obliquitous  nation  that  of  simplicity  of  mind. 

I  have  no  time  to  dwell  longer  on  the  existing  fallacies  in 
the  representation  either  of  the  fah-y  or  the  animal  kingdoms, 
I  must  pass  to  the  happier  duty  of  returning  thanks  for  the  truth 
with  which  our  living  painters  have  drawn  for  us  the  lovely 
dynasty  of  little  creatures,  about  whose  reality  thei-e  can  be  no 
doubt  ;  and  who  are  at  once  the  most  powerful  of  fairies,  and 
the  most  amusing,  if  not  always  the  most  sagacious  !  of  animals. 

In  my  last  lecture.  I  noted  to  you,  though  only  pareutheti- 

*  Jlacmillan,  1871. 


63  THE  ART  OF  ENQLAHD. 

cally,  the  singular  defect  in  Greek  art,  that  it  never  gives  you 
any  conception  of  Greek  children.  Neither — up  to  the  thir- 
teenth century— does  Gothic  art  give  you  any  conception  of 
Gothic  children  ;  for,  until  the  thirteenth  century,  the  Goth 
Wcas  not  perfectly  Christianized,  and  still  thought  only  of  the 
strength  of  humanity  as  admirable  in  battle  or  venerable  in 
judgment,  but  not  as  dutiful  in  peace,  nor  happy  in  simplicity. 

But  from  the  moment  when  the  spirit  of  Christianity  had 
been  entirely  interpreted  to  the  Western  races,  the  sanctity  of 
womanhood  worshipped  in  the  Madonna,  and  the  sanctity  of 
childhood  in  unity  with  that  of  Christ,  became  the  light  of 
every  honest  hearth,  and  the  joy  of  every  pure  and  chastened 
soul.  Yet  the  traditions  of  art-subject,  and  the  vices  of  luxuiy 
which  developed  themselves  in  the  following  (fourteenth)  cent- 
urj%  prevented  the  manifestation  of  this  new  force  in  domes- 
tic life  for  two  centuries  more  ;  and  then  at  last  in  the  child 
angels  of  Luca,  Mino  of  Fesole,  Luini,  Angelico,  Perugino, 
and  the  first  days  of  Raphael,  it  expressed  itself  ^  the  one 
pure  and  sacred  passion  which  protected  Christendom  from 
the  ruin  of  the  Renaissance.  . 

Nor  has  it  since  failed  ;  and  whatever  disgrace  or  blame  ob- 
scured the  conception  of  the  later  Flemish  and  incipient  Eng- 
lish schools,  the  children,  whether  in  the  pictures  of  Rubens, 
Rembrandt,  Vandyke,  or  Sir  Joshua,  were  always  beautiful. 
An  extremely  dark  period  indeed  follows,  leading  to  and  per- 
sisting in  the  French  Revolution,  and  issuing  in  the  merciless 
manufacturing  fury,  which  to-day  grinds  children  to  dust  be- 
tween millstones,  and  tears  them  to  pieces  on  engine-wheels, 
— against  which  rises  round  us.  Heaven  be  thanked,  again  the 
protest  and  the  power  of  Christianity,  restoring  the  fields  of 
the  quiet  earth  to  the  steps  of  her  infancy. 

In  Germany,  this  protest,  I  believe,  began  with — it  is  at  all 
events  perfectly  represented  by— the  Ludwig  Richter  I  have 
so  often  named  ;  in  France,  with  Edward  Frere,  whose  pict- 
ures of  children  are  of  quite  immortal  beauty.  But  in  Eng- 
land it  was  long  repressed  by  the  terrible  action  of  our  wealth, 
compelling  our  painters  to  represent  the  children  of  the  poor 
as  in  wickedness  or  misexy.     It  is  one  of  the  most  terrific  facta 


FAIRY  LAND.  63 

in  all  the  historj'  of  Briuish  art  that  Bewick  never  draws  chil- 
dren but  in  mischief. 

I  am  not  able  to  say  with  whom,  in  Bi'itain,  the  reaction 
first  begins, — but  certainly  not  in  painting  until  after  Wilkie, 
in  all  Avliose  works  there  is  not  a  single  example  of  a  beautiful 
Scottish  boy  or  girl.  I  imagine  in  literature,  we  may  take 
the  '  Cotter's  Saturday  Night '  and  the  '  toddlin'  wee  things  ' 
as  the  real  beginning  of  child  benediction  ;  and  I  am  disposed 
to  assign  in  England  much  value  to  the  widely  felt,  though 
little  acknowledged,  influence  of  an  authoress  now  forgotten 
— Maiy  Russell  Mitford.  Her  village  children  in  the  Low- 
lands— in  the  Highlands,  the  Lucy  Grays  and  Alice  Fells  of 
Wordsworth— brought  back  to  us  the  hues  of  Fairy  Land  ; 
and  although  long  by  Academic  art  denied  or  resisted,  at  last 
the  charm  is  felt  in  London  itself, — on  pilgrimage  in  whose 
suburbs  you  find  the  Little  Nells  and  boy  David  Copper- 
fields  ;  and  in  the  heart  of  it.  Kit's  baby  brother  at  Astley's, 
indenting  his  cheek  with  an  oyster-sheU  to  the  admiration  of 
all  beholders  ;  till  at  last,  bursting  out  like  one  of  the  sweet 
Surrey  fountains,  all  dazzling  and  pure,  you  have  the  radiance 
and  innocence  or  reinstated  infant  divinity  showered  again 
among  the  flowers  of  English  meadows  by  Mrs.  Allingham 
and  Kate  Greenaway. 

It  has  chanced  strangely,  that  every  one  of  the  artists  to 
whom  in  these  lectures  I  wished  chiefly  to  direct  your 
thoughts,  has  been  insufficiently,  or  even  disadvantageousl}', 
represented  by  his  work  in  the  exhibitions  of  the  season.  But 
chiefly  I  have  been  disappointed  in  finding  no  drawing  of  the 
least  interest  by  Mrs.  Allingham  in  the  room  of  the  Old 
Water-colour  Society.  And  let  me  say,  in  passing,  that  none 
of  these  new  splendours  and  spaces  of  show  galleries,  with  at- 
tached restaurants  to  support  the  cockney  constitution  under 
the  trial  of  getting  from  one  end  of  them  to  the  other,  will  in 
the  least  make  up  to  the  real  art-loving  public  for  the  loss  of 
the  goodfellowship  of  our  old  societies,  every  member  of 
which  sent  everything  he  had  done  best  in  the  year  into  the 
room,  for  the  May  meetings  ;  shone  with  his  debited  measure 
of  admiration  in  his  accustomed  corner  ;  supported  his  asso- 


64  THE  ART  OF  ENGLAND. 

ciatea  withcut  eclipsing  them  ;  supplied  his  customers  with- 
out impoverishing  them  ;  and  was  permitted  to  sell  a  picture 
to  his  patron  or  his  friend,  without  paying  fifty  guineas  com- 
mission on  the  business  to  a  dealer. 

Howsoever  it  may  have  chanced,  Mrs.  Allingham  has  noth- 
ing of  importance  in  the  water-colour  room  ;  and  I  am  even 
sorrowfully  compelled  to  express  my  regret  that  she  should 
have  spent  unavailing  pains  in  finishing  single  heads,  which 
are  at  the  best  uninteresting  miniatures,  instead  of  fulfilling 
her  true  gift,  and  doing  what  (in  Miss  Alexander's  words) 
*  the  Lord  made  her  for ' — in  representing  the  gesture,  char- 
acter, and  humour  of  charming  children  in  country  land- 
scapes. Her 'Tea  Party,' in  last  year's  exhibition,  with  the 
little  girl  giving  her  doll  its  bread  and  milk,  and  taking  care 
that  she  supped  it  with  propriety,  may  be  named  as  a  most 
lovely  example  of  her  feeling  and  her  art ;  and  the  drawing 
which  some  years  ago  riveted,  and  ever  since  has  retained, 
the  public  admiration, — the  two  deliberate  housewives  in 
their  village  toyshop,  bent  on  domestic  utilities  and  econo- 
mies, and  proud  in  the  acquisition  of  two  flat  irons  for  a  far- 
thing,— has  become,  and  rightly,  a  classic  picture,  which  will 
have  its  place  among  the  memorable  things  in  the  art  of  our 
time,  Avhen  many  of  its  loudly  trumpeted  magnificences  are 
remembered  no  more. 

I  must  not  in  this  place  omit  mention,  with  sincere  grati- 
tude, of  the  like  motives  in  the  paintings  of  Mr.  Birkett 
Foster ;  but  with  regret  that  in  too  equal,  yet  incomplete, 
realization  of  them,  mistaking,  in  many  instances,  mei-e  spotty 
execution  for  finish,  he  has  never  taken  the  high  position  that 
was  open  to  him  as  an  illustrator  of  rustic  life. 

And  I  am  grieved  to  omit  the  names  of  many  other  ai-tists 
who  have  protested,  with  consistent  feeling,  against  the  misery 
entailed  on  the  poor  children  of  our  great  cities, — by  painting 
the  real  inheritance  of  childhood  in  the  meadows  and  fresh 
air.  But  the  graciousness  and  sentiment  of  them  all  is  enough 
represented  by  the  hitherto  undreamt-of,  and,  in  its  range, 
unrivalled,  fancy,  which  is  now  re-establishing  throughout 
gentle  Europe,  the  manners  and  customs  of  faiiyland. 


FAIRY  LAND.  63 

I  may  best  indicate  to  you  the  gi-asp  which  the  genius  of 
Miss  Kate  Greenaway  has  taken  upon  the  spirit  of  foreign 
lands,  no  less  than  her  own,  by  translating  the  last  paragi-aph 
of  the  entirely  candid,  and  intimately  observant,  review  of 
modern  English  art,  given  by  iMonsieur  Ernest  Chesneau,  in  his 
small  volume,  '  La  Peiuture  Auglaise,'  of  which  I  will  only  at 
present  say,  that  any  of  my  pupils  who  read  French  with 
practice  enough  to  recognize  the  finesse  of  it  in  exact  expres- 
sion, may  not  only  acce^Dt  his  criticism  as  my  own,  but  wiU 
find  it  often  more  careful  than  mine,  and  nearly  always  better 
expressed  ;  because  French  is  essentially  a  critical  language, 
and  can  say  things  in  a  sentence  which  it  would  take  half  a 
page  of  English  to  explain. 

He  gives  first  a  quite  lovely  passage  (too  long  to  introduce 
now)  upon  the  gentleness  of  the  satire  of  John  Leech,  as 
opposed  to  the  bitter  malignity  of  former  caricature.  Then 
he  goes  on  :  '•  The  gx-eat  softening  of  the  EugUsh  mind,  so 
manifest  already  in  John  Leech,  shows  itself  in  a  decisive 
manner  by  the  enthusiasm  with  which  the  public  have  lately 
received  the  designs  of  Mr.  Walter  Crane,  Mr.  Caldecott,  and 
Miss  Kate  Greenaway.  The  two  first  named  artists  began  by 
addressing  to  children  the  stories  of  Perrault  and  of  the 
Arabian  Nights,  translated  and  adorned  for  them  in  a  dazzling 
manner  ;  and,  in  the  works  of  all  these  three  artists,  landscape 
plays  an  important  part ; — familiar  landscape,  veiy  English, 
intei-preted  with  a  '  bonhomie  savante  '  "  (no  translating  that), 
•'spiritual,  decorative  in  the  rarest  taste, — sti-ange  and  precious 
adaptation  ot  Etruscan  art,  Flemish  and  Japanese,  reaching, 
together  Avith  the  perfect  interpretation  of  uatui-e,  to  incom- 
parable chords  uf  colour  harmony.  These  powers  are  found 
in  the  work  of  the  three,  but  Miss  Greenaway,  with  a  profound 
sentiment  of  lov<3  for  children,  puts  the  child  alone  on  the 
scene,  companions  iiim  in  his  own  solitudes,  and  shows  the 
infantine  nature  in  r11  its  naivete,  its  gaucherie,  its  touching 
grace,  its  shy  alarm,  its  discoveries,  ravishments,  embarrass- 
ments, and  victories  ;  <he  stumblings  of  it  in  wintry  ways,  tha 
enchanted  smiles  of  its  spring  time,  and  all  the  history  of  its 
tond  heai-t  and  guiltless  egoism. 
5 


CO  THE  ART  OF  EXGLAXD. 

"  From  the  honest  but  fierce  laugh  of  the  coarse  Saxon, 
AVilliam  Hogarth,  to  the  delicious  smile  of  Kate  Greenaway, 
there  has  passed  a  century  and  a  half.  Is  it  the  same  people 
which  applauds  to-day  the  sweet  genius  and  tender  malices  of 
the  one,  and  which  applauded  the  bitter  genius  and  slaughter- 
ous satire  of  the  other  ?  After  all,  that  is  possible, — the  hatred 
of  vice  is  only  another  manifestation  of  the  love  of  innocence." 

Thus  far  M.  Chesneau — and  I  venture  only  to  take  up  the 
admirable  passage  at  a  question  I  did  not  translate  :  "  Ira-t- 
on au  dela,  fera-t-on  mieux  encore  ?  " — and  to  answer  joyfully, 
Yes,  if  you  choose  ;  you,  the  British  pubUc,  to  encourage  the 
artist  in  doing  the  best  she  can  for  you.  She  will,  if  yon  will 
receive  it  when  she  does. 

I  have  brought  with  me  to-day  in  the  first  place  som.e  ex- 
amples of  her  pencil  sketches  in  primary  design.  These  in 
general  the  public  cannot  see,  and  these,  as  is  always  the  case 
with  the  finest  imaginative  work,  contaiii  the  best  essence  of 
it, — qualities  never  afterwards  to  be  recovered,  and  expressed 
with  the  best  of  all  sensitive  instruments,  the  pencil  point. 

You  have  here,  for  consummate  example,  a  dance  of  fairies 
under  a  mushroom,  which  she  did  under  challenge  to  show 
me  what  fairies  were  like.  "  They'll  be  very  like  children," 
she  said  ;  I  answered  that  I  didn't  mind,  and  should  like  to 
see  them,  all  the  same ; — so  here  they  are,  with  a  dance,  also, 
of  two  girlies,  outside  of  a  mushroom  ;  and  I  don't  know 
whether  the  elfins  or  girls  are  fairyfootedest :  and  one  or  two 
more  subjects,  which  you  may  find  out  ; — but,  in  all,  you  will 
see  that  the  line  is  ineffably  tender  and  delicate,  and  can't  in 
the  least  be  represented  by  the  lines  of  a  woodcut.  But  I 
have  long  since  shown  you  the  power  of  line  engraving  as  it 
was  first  used  in  Florence  ;  and  if  you  choose,  you  may  far  re- 
cover the  declining  energies  of  line  engraving  in  England,  by 
encouraging  its  use  in  the  multiplication,  whether  of  these,  or 
of  Turner  outlines,  or  of  old  Floi*entine  silver  point  outlines, 
no  otherwise  to  be  possessed  by  you.  I  have  given  you  one 
example  of  what  is  possible  in  Mr.  Kolfe's  engraving  of  Ida ; 
and,  if  all  goes  well,  before  the  autumn  fairy  rings  are  traced, 
you  shall  see  some  fairy  Idas  caught  flying. 


FAIRY  LAND.  Ch 

So  far  of  pure  outline.  Next,  for  the  eniichment  of  it  bj 
colour.  Monsieur  Chesneau  doubts  if  the  charm  of  Miss 
Greenaway's  work  can  be  carried  farther.  I  answer,  with  se- 
curity,— yes,  very  much  farther,  and  that  in  two  directions  : 
first,  in  her  own  method  of  design  ;  and  secondly,  the  manner 
of  its  representation  in  printing. 

First,  her  own  design  has  been  greatly  restricted  by  beinq 
too  ornamental,  or,  in  your  modern  phrase  decorative  ; — con- 
tracted into  any  corner  of  a  Christmas  card,  or  stretched  like 
an  elastic  band  round  the  edges  of  an  almanack.  Now,  her 
art  is  much  too  good  to  be  used  n>erel\  for  illumination  ;  .'t  i9 
essentially  and  perfectly  that  of  true  cobur-picture,  and  tb^t 
the  most  naive  and  delightful  mani^ft*:  of  picture,  because,  on. 
the  simplest  terms,  it  comes  neai'est  reality.  No  end  of  mis- 
chief has  been  done  to  modern  art  by  the  habit  of  running 
semi-pictorial  illustration  round  the  margine  of  ornamental 
volumes,  and  Miss  Greeuaway  has  beou  wasting  her  strength 
too  sorrowfully  in  making  the  edges  of  her  little  birthday 
books,  and  the  like,  glitter  with  unregarded  gold,  wheren? 
her  power  should  be  concentrated  in  the  4irect  illustration  of 
connected  story,  and  her  pictures  should  bo  made  completo 
on  the  page,  and  far  more  realistic  than  decorative.  There  is 
no  charm  so  enduring  as  that  of  the  I'eal  representation  of  any 
given  scene  ;  her  present  designs  are  like  living  flowers  flat- 
tened to  go  into  an  hei'barium,  and  sometimes  too  pretty  to 
be  beUeved.  We  must  ask  her  for  more  descriptive  realit\', 
for  more  convincing  simplicity,  and  we  must  get  her  to  or- 
ganize a  school  of  colourists  by  hand,  who  can  absolutely  fac- 
simile her  own  first  drawing. 

This  is  the  second  matter  on  which  I  have  to  insist.  I 
bring  with  me  to-day  twelve  of  her  oi-iginal  drawings,  and 
have  mounted  beside  them,  good  impressions  of  the  published 
prints. 

I  may  heartily  congratulate  both  the  publishers  and  posses- 
sors of  the  book  on  the  excellence  of  these  ;  yet  if  you  exam- 
ine them  closely,  you  will  find  that  the  colour  blocks  of  the 
print  sometimes  slip  a  little  aside,  so  as  to  lose  the  precision 
of  the  drawing;  in  important  places  ;  and  in  many  other  re- 


08  THE  ART  OF  ENGLAND. 

spects  better  can  be  done,  in  at  least  a  certain  number  of 
chosen  copies.  I  must  not,  however,  detain  you  to-day  by 
entering  into  particulars  in  this  matter.  I  am  content  to  ask 
your  sympathy  in  the  endeavour,  if  I  can  prevail  on  the  artist 
to  undertake  it. 

Only  with  respect  to  this  and  every  other  question  of 
method  in  engraving,  observe  farther  that  all  the  drawings  I 
bring  you  to-day  agree  in  one  thing, — minuteness  and  deli- 
cacy of  touch  carried  to  its  utmost  limit,  visible  in  its  perfect- 
ness  to  the  eyes  of  youth,  but  neither  executed  with  a  magni- 
fying glass,  nor,  except  to  aged  eyes,  needing  one.  Even  I, 
at  sixty-four,  can  see  the  essential  qualities  of  the  work  with- 
out spectacles  ;  though  only  the  youngest  of  my  friends  here 
can  see,  for  instance,  Kate's  fairy  dance,  perfectly,  but  they 
can,  with  their  own  bright  eyes. 

And  now  please  note  this,  for  an  entirely  general  law,  again 
and  again  reiterated  by  me  for  many  a  year.  All  great  art  is 
delicate,  and  fine  to  the  uttermosi  Wherever  there  is  blot- 
ting, or  daubing,  or  dashing,  there  is  weakness,  at  least ; 
probably,  affectation  ;  certainly,  bluntness  of  feeling.  But, 
all  delicacy  which  is  rightly  pleasing  to  the  human  mind  is 
addressed  to  the  unaided  human  sight,  not  to  microscopic  help 
or  mediation. 

And  now  generalize  that  law  farther.  As  all  noble  sight  is 
with  the  eyes  that  God  has  given  you,  so  all  noble  motion 
is  with  the  limbs  God  has  balanced  for  you,  and  all  noble 
strength  with  the  arms  He  has  knit.  Though  you  should  put 
electric  coils  into  your  high  heels,  and  make  spring-heeled 
Jacks  and  Gills  of  yourselves,  you  will  never  dance,  so,  as  you 
could  barefoot.  Though  you  could  have  machines  that  would 
swing  a  ship  of  war  into  the  sea,  and  drive  a  railway  train 
through  a  rock,  all  divine  strength  is  still  the  strength  of 
Herakles,  a  man's  wrestle,  and  a  man's  blow. 

There  are  two  other  points  I  must  try  to  enforce  in  closing, 
very  clearly.  "Landscape,"  says  M.  Chesneau,  "takes  great 
part  in  these  lovely  designs."  He  does  not  say  of  what  kind ; 
may  I  ask  you  to  look,  for  yourselves,  and  think  ? 

There  are  no  railroads  in  it,  to  carry  the  children  awa^ 


FAIRY  LAND.  69 

with,  are  there  ?  no  tunnel  or  pit  mouths  to  swaDow  them  up, 
no  league-long  viaducts — no  blinkered  iron  bridges?  There 
are  only  winding  brooks,  -wooden  foot-bridges,  and  grassy  hills 
without  any  holes  cut  into  them  ! 

Again, — there  are  no  pai'ks,  no  gentlemen's  seats  with  at- 
tached stables  and  offices  ! — no  rows  of  model  lodging  houses! 
no  charitable  institutions  !  !  It  seems  as  if  none  of  these  things 
which  the  English  mind  now  rages  after,  possess  any  attraction 
whatever  for  this  unimpressionable  person.  She  is  a  graceful 
GaUio — Gallia  gratia  plena,  and  cares  for  none  of  those  things. 

And  more  wonderful  still, — there  are  no  gasworks  !  no 
waterworks,  no  mowing  machines,  no  sewing  machines,  no  tel- 
egraph poles,  no  vestige,  in  fact,  of  science,  civilization,  eco- 
nomical arrangements,  or  commercial  enterprise  !  !  ! 

Would  you  wish  me,  with  professorial  authority,  to  advise 
her  that  her  conceptions  belong  to  the  dai'k  ages,  and  must 
be  reared  on  a  new  foundation  ?  Or  is  it,  on  the  other  hand, 
recommendably  conceivable  by  you,  that  perhaps  the  world 
we  truly  live  iu  may  not  be  quite  so  changeable  as  jon  have 
thought  it ; —  that  all  the  gold  and  silver  you  can  dig  out  of 
the  earth  are  not  worth  the  kingcups  and  the  daisies  she  gave 
you  of  her  grace  ;  and  that  all  the  fui-y,  and  the  flutter, 
and  the  wonder,  and  the  wistfulness,  of  your  lives,  will  never 
discover  for  you  any  other  than  the  ancient  blessing  :  "  He 
maketh  me  to  lie  down  in  green  pastures.  He  leadeth  me  be- 
side the  still  waters,  He  restoreth  my  soul "  ? 

Yet  one  word  more.  Observe  that  what  this  unimpression- 
able person  does  draw,  she  draws  as  like  it  as  she  can.  It  is 
true  that  the  combination  or  composition  of  things  is  not 
what  you  can  see  every  day.  You  can't  every  day,  for  in- 
stance, see  a  baby  thrown  into  a  basket  of  roses  ;  but  when 
she  has  once  pleasantly  invented  that  arrangement  for  you, 
baby  is  as  like  baby,  and  rose  as  like  rose,  as  she  can  possibly 
draw  tliem.  And  the  beauty  of  them  is  in  being  like.  They 
are  blissful,  just  in  the  degi*ee  that  they  are  natural ;  and  the 
fairyland  she  creates  for  you  is  not  beyond  the  sky  nor  bc' 
neath  the  sea,  but  nigh  you,  even  at  your  dooi-s.  She  does 
but  show  you  how  to  see  it,  and  how  to  cherish. 


70  THE  ART  OF  JHHGLAIiD. 

Long  since  I  told  you  this  great  law  of  noble  imagination. 
It  does  not  create,  it  does  not  even  adorn,  it  does  but  reveal, 
the  treasures  to  be  possessed  by  the  spirit.  I  told  you  this 
of  the  work  of  the  great  painter  whom,  in  that  day,  everj'one 
accused  of  representing  only  the  fantastic  and  the  impossible. 
I  said  forty  years  ago,  and  say  at  this  instant,  more  solemnly, 
All  his  magic  is  in  his  truth. 

I  show  you,  to-day,  a  beautiful  copy  made  for  me  by  Mr. 
Macdonald,  of  the  drawing  which,  of  all  the  Turners  I  gave 
3'ou,  I  miss  the  most.  I  never  thought  it  could  have  been 
copied  at  all,  and  hive  received  from  Mr.  Macdonald,  in  this 
lovely  rendering  of  it,  as  much  a  lesson  as  a  consolation. 
For  my  purpose  to-day  it  is  just  as  good  as  if  I  had  brought 
the  drawing  itself. 

It  is  one  of  the  Loii-e  series,  which  the  engravers  could  not 
attempt,  because  it  was  too  lovely  ;  or  would  not  attempt,  be- 
cause there  was,  to  their  notion,  nothing  in  it.  It  is  only  a 
coteau,  scarce  a  hundred  feet  above  the  river,  nothing  like  so 
high  as  the  Thames  banks  between  here  and  Reading, — only 
a  coteau,  and  a  recess  of  calm  water,  and  a  breath  of  mist, 
and  a  ray  of  sunset.  The  simplest  things,  the  frequentest, 
the  dearest ;  things  that  3'ou  may  see  any  siimmer  evening 
by  a  thousand  thousand  streams  among  the  low  hills  of  old 
familiar  lands.  Love  them,  and  see  them  rightly, — Andes  and 
Caucasus,  Amazon  and  Indus,  can  give  you  no  more. 

The  danger  imminent  on  you  is  the  destruction  of  what  you 
have.  1  walked  yesterday  afternoon  round  St.  John's  gar- 
dens, and  found  them,  as  they  always  are  in  spring  time, 
almost  an  ideal  of  earthly  Paradise, — the  St.  John's  students 
also  disporting  themselves  therein  in  games  preparatoi-y  to 
the  advent  of  the  true  fairies  of  Commemoration.  But,  the 
afternoon  before,  I  had  walked  down  St.  John's  Road,  and,  on 
emerging  therefrom  to  cross  the  railway,  found  on  my  left 
hand  a  piece  of  waste  ground,  extremely  characteristic  of 
that  with  which  we  now  always  adorn  the  suburbs  of  our 
cities,  and  of  which  it  can  only  be  said  that  no  demons  could 
contrive,  under  the  eai-th,  a  mox-e  uncomfortable  and  abomina- 
ble place  of  misery  for  the  condemned  souls  of  dirty  people, 


THE  FIRESIDE.  71 

than  Oxford  thus  allows  the  western  light  to  shine  upon — 
'  nel  aer  dolce,  che  dal  sol  s'allegra.'  For  many  a  year  I  have 
now  been  telling  you,  and  in  the  final  words  of  this  first  course 
of  lectures  in  Avhich  I  have  been  permitted  again  to  resume 
work  among  you,  let  me  tell  you  yet  once  more,  and  if  possible, 
more  vehemently,  that  neither  sound  art,  jDolicy,  nor  religion, 
can  exist  in  England,  until,  neglecting,  if  it  must  be,  yoiu* 
own  pleasure  gardens  and  pleasure  chambers,  you  resolve 
that  the  streets  which  are  the  habitation  of  the  poor,  and  the 
fields  which  are  the  playgrounds  of  their  children,  shall  be 
again  restored  to  the  rule  of  the  spirits,  whosoever  they  are 
in  earth,  and  heaven,  that  ordain,  and  rewai'd,  with  constant 
and  conscious  felicity,  all  that  is  decent  and  orderly,  beautiful 
and  pure. 


LECTUEE    V. 

The  Fireside. 

JOHN    LEECH    AND    JOHN    TENNIEL. 

The  outlines  of  the  schools  of  our  National  Art  which  I  at- 
tempted in  the  four  lectures  given  last  spring,  had  led  us  to 
the  point  where  the,  to  us  chiefly  important,  and,  it  may  per- 
haps be  said,  tempoi'ai'ily,  all  important  questions  respecting 
the  uses  of  art  in  popular  education,  were  introduced  to  us  by 
the  beautiful  drawings  of  Miss  Alexander  and  Miss  Greenaway. 
But  these  drawings,  in  their  dignified  and  delicate,  often  re- 
served, and  sometimes  severe  characters,  address  themselves 
to  a  circle,  which  however  large, — or  even  (I  say  it  with  thank- 
fulness) practically  infinite,  yet  consists  exclusively  of  persons 
of  already  cultivated  sensibilities,  and  more  or  less  gentle  and 
serious  temper.  The  interests  of  general  education  compel 
our  reference  to  a  class  entirely  beneath  these,  or  at  least  dis- 
tinct from  them  ;  and  our  consideration  of  art-methods  to 
which  the  conditions  of  cheapness,  and  rapidity  of  multiplica- 
tion, are  absolutely  essential. 

I  have  stated,  and  it  is  one  of  the  paradoxes  of  my  political 


1-2  THE  ART  OF  ENGLAND. 

economy  which  you  will  find  on  examination  to  be  the  expi'es- 
sion  of  a  final  truth,  that  there  is  no  such  thing  as  a  just  or 
real  cheapness,  but  that  all  things  have  their  necessary  price  : 
and  that  you  can  no  more  obtain  them  for  less  than  that 
price,  than  you  can  alter  the  course  of  the  earth.  When  you 
obtain  anything  yourself  for  half-price,  somebody  else  must 
always  have  paid  the  other  half.  But,  in  the  sense  either 
of  having  cost  less  labom-,  or  of  being  the  productions  of 
less  rare  genius,  there  are,  of  course,  some  kinds  of  art  more 
generally  attainable  than  others ;  and,  of  these,  the  kinds 
which  depend  on  the  use  of  the  simplest  means  are  also  those 
which  are  calculated  to  have  most  influence  over  the  sim- 
jjlest  minds.  The  disciplined  qualities  of  line-engraving  will 
scarcely  be  relished,  and  often  must  even. pass  unperceived. 
by  an  uneducated  or  careless  observer  ;  but  the  attention  of  a 
child  may  be  excited,  and  the  apathy  of  a  clown  overcome,  by 
the  blunt  lines  of  a  vigorous  woodcut. 

To  my  own  mind,  there  is  no  more  beautiful  proof  of  be- 
nevolent design  in  the  creation  of  the  earth,  than  the  exact 
adaptation  of  its  materials  to  the  art-power  of  man.  The  plas- 
ticity and  constancy  under  fire  of  clay  ;  the  ductility  and  fusi- 
bility of  gold  and  iron  ;  the  consistent  softness  of  marble  ; 
and  the  fibrous  toughness  of  wood,  are  in  each  material  car- 
ried to  the  exact  degree  which  renders  them  provocative  of 
skiU  by  their  resistance,  and  full  of  reward  for  it  by  their 
compliance  :  so  that  the  dehght  with  which,  after  suflSciently 
intimate  study  of  the  methods  of  manual  work,  the  student 
ought  to  regard  the  excellence  of  a  masterpiece,  is  never 
merely  the  admiration  of  difficulties  overcome,  but  the  sym- 
pathy, in  a  certain  sense,  both  with  the  enjoyment  of  the  work- 
man in  managing  a  substance  so  pliable  to  his  will,  and  with 
the  worthiness,  fitness,  and  obedience  of  the  material  itself, 
which  at  once  invites  his  authority,  and  rewards  his  conces- 
sions. 

But  of  all  the  various  instruments  of  his  life  and  genius, 
none  are  so  manifold  in  their  service  to  him  as  that  which  the 
forest  leaves  gather  every  summer  out  of  the  air  he  breathea 
Think  of  the  use  of  it  in  house  and  furniture  alone.     I  havo 


THE  FIRESIDE.  73 

lived  in  marble  palaces,  and  under  frescoed  loggie,  but  bave 
nevei  been  so  comfortable  in  either  as  in  the  clean  room  of 
an  old  Swiss  inn,  whose  walls  and  floor  were  of  plain  deal. 
You  will  niid  also,  in  the  long  run,  that  none  of  your  modern 
aesthetic  upholstery  can  match,  for  comfort,  good  old  English 
oak  wainscot ;  rfnd  that  the  -ciystalline  magnificence  of  the 
marbles  of  Genoa  and  the  macigno  of  Florence  can  give  no  more 
pleasure  to  daily  iifo  than  the  carved  brackets  and  tref oiled 
gables  which  once  shaded  the  busy  and  merry  streets,  and 
lifted  the  chiming  carilloiis  above  them,  in  Kent  and  Picardy. 

As  a  material  of  sculpture,  wood  has  hitherto  been  em- 
ployed chiefly  by  the  less  cuHivated  races  of  Europe  ;  and  we 
cannot  know  what  Orcagna  wouid  have  made  of  his  shrine,  or 
Ghiberti  of  his  gates,  if  they  Lad  worked  in  olive  wood  in- 
stead of  marble  and  bronze.  But  2ven  as  matters  now  stand, 
the  carving  of  the  pinnacled  stalls  in  our  northern  cathedrals, 
and  that  of  the  foHage  on  the  horizontal  beams  of  domestic 
architecture,  gave  rise  to  a  school  of  ornament  of  which  the 
proudest  edifices  of  the  sixteenth  century  ai*e  only  the  trans- 
lation into  stone  ;  and  to  which  our  somewhat  dull  respect 
for  the  zigzags  and  dog-teeth  of  a  sterner  time  has  made  us 
alike  neglectful  and  unjust.* 

But  it  is  above  all  as  a  medium  of  engraving  that  the  easy 
submission  of  wood  to  the  edge  of  the  chisel, — I  will  use 
this  plain  word,  if  you  please,  instead  of  burin, — and  the  tough 
durabihty  of  its  grain,  have  made  it  so  widely  serviceable  to 
us  for  popular  pleasure  in  art ;  but  mischievous  also,  in  the 
degree  in  which  it  encoui'ages  the  cheapest  and  vilest  modes 
of  design.  The  coarsest  scrawl  with  a  blunt  pen  can  be  re- 
produced on  a  wood-block  with  perfect  ease  by  the  clumsiest 
engx*aver  ;  and  there  are  tens  of  thousands  of  vulgar  artists 
who  can  scrawl  with  a  blunt  pen,  and  with  no  trouble  to  them- 
selves, something  that  will  amuse,  as  I  said,  a  child  or  a  cIo'^ti. 
But  there  is  not  one  artist  in  ten  thousand  who  can  draw  even 
simple  objects  rightly  with  a  perfectly  pure  line  ;  when  such 
a  line  is  drawn,  only  an  extremely  skilful  engraver  can  repro- 

*  Compare  '  Bible  of  Amiens,'  p.  14,  "  aisles  of  aspen,  orchards  of 
apple,  clusters  of  vine." 


74  THE  ART  OF  ENGLAND. 

duce  it  on  wood  ;  when  reproduced,  it  is  liable  to  be  broken 
at  the  second  or  third  printing  ;  and  supposing  it  permanent, 
not  one  spectator  in  ten  thousand  would  care  for  it. 

There  is,  however,  another  temptation,  constant  in  the 
practice  of  wood-cutting,  which  has  been  peculiarly  harmful 
to  us  in  the  present  day.  The  action  of  the  chisel  on  wood, 
as  you  doubtless  are  aware,  is  to  produce  a  white  touch  on  a 
black  ground  ;  and  if  a  few  white  touches  can  be  so  distributed 
as  to  produce  any  kind  of  effect,  all  the  black  ground  becomes 
part  of  the  imagined  picture,  with  no  trouble  whatever  to  the 
workman  :  so  that  you  buy  in  your  cheap  magazine  a  picture, 
— say  four  inches  square,  or  sixteen  square  inches  of  surface, 
— in  the  Avhole  of  which  there  may  only  be  half  an  inch  of 
work.  Whereas,  in  line-engraving,  every  atom  of  the  shade 
has  to  be  worked  for,  and  that  with  extreme  care,  evenness 
and  dexterity  of  hand  ;  while  even  in  etching,  though  a  great 
quantity  of  the  shade  is  mere  blurr  and  scrabble  and  blotch,  a 
certain  quantity  of  real  care  and  skill  viusl  be  spent  in  cover- 
ing the  surface  at  firsi  "Whereas  the  common  woodcut  re- 
quires scarcely  more*  trouble  than  a  schoolboy  takes  with  a 
scrawl  on  his  slate,  and  yoxx  might  order  such  pictures  by  the 
cartload  from  Coniston  quarries,  with  only  a  clever  urchin  or 
two  to  put  the  chalk  on. 

But  the  mischief  of  the  woodcut,  considered  simply  as  a 
means  in  the  publisher's  hands  of  imposing  cheap  work  on 
the  purchaser,  is  trebled  by  its  morbid  power  of  expressing 
ideas  of  ugliness  or  terror.  While  no  entirely  beautiful  thing 
can  be  represented  in  a  woodcut,  every  form  of  vulgarity  or 
unpleasantness  can  be  given  to  the  life  ;  and  the  result  is, 
that,  especially  in  our  popular  scientific  books,  the  mere  effoi't 
to  be  amusing  and  attractive  leads  to  the  publication  of  every 
species  of  the  abominable.  No  microscope  can  teach  the  beauty 
of  a  statue,  nor  can  any  woodcut  represent  that  of  a  nobly 
bred  human  form  ;  but  only  last  term  we  saw  the  whole  Ash- 
molean  Society  held  in  a  trance  of  rapture  by  the  inexplicable 
decoration  of  the  posteriors  of  a  flea  ;  and  I  have  framed  for 
you  here,  around  a  page  of  the  scientific  journal  which  styles 
itself  '  Knowledge,'  a  collection  of  woodcuts  out  of  a  scientific 


TEE  FIRESIDE.  7o 

survey  of  South  America,  presenting  collectively  to  you,  in 
designs  ignorantly  drawn  and  vilely  engraved,  yet  with  the 
peculiar  advantage  belonging  to  the  cheap  woodcut,  whatever, 
through  that  fourth  part  of  the  round  world,  from  Mexico  to 
Patagonia,  can  be  found  of  savage,  sordid,  vicious,  or  ridicu- 
lous in  humanity,  without  so  much  as  one  exceptional  indica- 
tion of  a  graceful  form,  a  tiiie  instinct,  or  a  cultivable  capacity. 

The  second  frame  is  of  French  scientific  art,  and  still  more 
curiously  horrible.  I  have  cut  these  examples,  not  by  any 
means  the  ugliest,  out  of  '  Les  Pourquoi  de  Mademoiselle 
Suzanne,'  a  book  in  which  it  is  proposed  to  instruct  a  young 
lady  of  eleven  or  twelve  years  old,  amusingly,  in  the  elements 
of  science, 

•  In  the  course  of  the  lively  initiation,  the  young  lady  has  the 
advantage  of  seeing  a  garde  champetre  struck  dead  by  light- 
ning ;  she  is  par  parenthose  entertained  with  the  history  and 
picture  of  the  suicide  of  the  cook  Vatel  ;  somebody's  heart, 
liver,  and  forearm  are  dissected  for  her  ;  all  the  phenomena 
of  nightmare  are  described  and  portrayed  ;  and  whatever 
spectres  of  monstrosity  can  be  conjured  into  the  sun,  the 
moon,  the  stars,  the  sky,  the  sea,  the  railway,  and  the  tele- 
graph, are  collected  into  black  company  by  the  cheap  en- 
graver. Black  company  is  a  mild  woi'd  :  you  Avill  find  the  right 
phrase  now  instinctively  adopted  by  the  very  persons  who  are 
most  charmed  by  these  new  modes  of  sensation.  In  the  '  Cent- 
ury '  magazine  for  this  month,  the  reviewer  of  some  American 

landscape  of  this  class  tells  us  that  Mr, ,  whoever  he  is, 

by  a  series  of  bands  of  black  and  red  paint,  has  succeeded 
in  entirely  reproducing  the  '  Devxoniac '  beauty  of  the  sunset. 

I  have  framed  these  French  cuts,  however,  chiefly  for  pur- 
poses of  illustration  in  mj  last  lectui-e  of  this  yeai*,  for  they 
show  you  in  perfect  abstract  all  the  wrong, — wrong  unques- 
tionably, whether  you  call  it  Demoniac,  Diabolic,  or  Esthetic, 
— against  which  my  entire  teaching,  from  its  first  syllable  to 
this  day,  has  been  straight  antagonist.  Of  this,  as  I  have  said, 
in  my  terminal  address  :  the  first  frame  is  for  to-day  enough 
representation  of  ordinary  English  cheap-trade  woodcutting 
in  its  necessary  hmitation  to  ugly  subject,  and  its  disrespect 


76  THE  ART  Oh   ENGLAND. 

for  the  very  quality  of  the  material  on  which  its  value  depends, 
elasticity.  There  is  this  great  difference  between  the  respect 
for  his  material  proper  to  a  workman  in  metal  or  marble,  and 
to  one  working  in  clay  or  wood,  that  the  former  has  to  exhibit 
the  actual  beauty  of  the  substance  itself,  but  the  latter  only 
its  special  capacity  of  answering  his  purpose.  A  sculptor  in 
mai-ble  is  required  to  show  the  beauty  of  marble-surface,  a 
sculptor  in  gold  its  various  lustre,  a  worker  in  iron  its  ductile 
strength.  But  the  wood-cutter  has  not  to  exhibit  his  block, 
nor  the  engraver  his  copper-plate.  They  have  only  to  use  the 
relative  softness  and  rigidity  of  those  substances  to  receive 
and  multiply  the  lines  drawn  by  the  human  hand  ;  and  it  is 
not  the  least  an  admirable  quality  in  wood  that  it  is  capable 
of  printing  a  large  blot ;  but  an  entirely  admirable  one  that" 
by  its  tough  elasticity  it  can  preserve  through  any  number  of 
impressions  the  distinctness  of  a  well  cut  line. 

Not  admirable,  I  say,  to  print  a  blot ;  but  to  print  a  pure 
line  unbroken,  and  an  intentionally  widened  space  or  spot  of 
darkness,  of  the  exact  shape  wanted.  In  my  former  lectures 
on  Wood  Engraving  I  did  not  enough  explain  this  quite  sep- 
arate virtue  of  the  material.  Neither  in  pencil  nor  pen  draw- 
ing, neither  in  engraving  nor  etching,  can  a  line  be  widened 
arbitrarily,  or  a  spot  enlarged  at  ease.  The  action  of  the 
moving  point  is  continuous  ;  you  can  increase  or  diminish 
the  line's  thickness  gi-adually,  but  not  by  starts  ;  you  must 
drive  your  plough-furrow,  or  let  your  pen  glide,  at  a  fixed 
rate  of  motion  ;  nor  can  you  afterwards  give  more  breadth  to 
the  pen  line  without  overchai-ging  the  ink,  nor  by  any  labour 
of  etching  tool  dig  out  a  cavity  of  shadow  such  as  the  wood 
engraver  leaves  in  an  instant. 

Hence,  the  methods  of  design  which  depend  on  irregularly 
expressive  shapes  of  black  touch,  belong  to  wood  exclusively  ; 
and  the  examples  placed  formerly  in  your  school  from  Bewick's 
cuts  of  speckled  plumage,  and  Burgmaier's  heraldry  of  .barred 
helmets  and  black  eagles,  were  intended  to  direct  your  atten- 
tion to  this  especially  intellectual  manner  of  work,  as  opposed 
to  modern  scribbling  and  hatching.  But  I  have  now  removed 
these  old-fashioned  prints,,  (placing  them,  however,  in  always 


THE  FIRESIDE.  17 

accessible  reserve,)  because  I  found  they  possessed  no  attrac- 
tion for  inexperienced  students^  and  I  think  it  better  to  explain 
the  qualities  of  execution  of  a  similar  kind,  though  otherwise 
directed,  which  are  to  be  found  in  the  designs  of  our  living 
masters, — addressed  to  existing  tastes, — and  occupied  with 
familiar  scenes. 

Although  I  have  headed  my  lecture  only  with  the  names  of 
Leech  and  Tenniel,  as  being  the  real  founders  of  'Punch,'  aud 
by  far  the  greatest  of  its  illustrators,  both  in  force  of  art  and 
range  of  thought,  yet  in  the  precision  of  the  use  of  his  means, 
and  the  subtle  boldness  to  which  he  has  educated  the  inter- 
preters of  his  desigu,  Mr.  Da  Maurier  is  more  exemplary  than 
either  ;  and  I  have  therefore  had  enlarged  by  photography, — 
your  thanks  are  due  to  the  brother  of  Miss  Greenaway  for  the 
skill  with  which  the  proofs  have  been  produced, — for  first  ex- 
ample of  fine  wood-cutting,  the  heads  of  two  of  Mr.  Du  Maur- 
ier's  chief  heroines,  Mrs.  Ponsonby  de  Tomkj'ns,  and  Lady 
Midas,  in  the  great  scene  where  Mrs.  Ponsonby  takes  on  her- 
self the  administration  of  Lady  Midas's  at  home. 

You  see  at  once  how  the  effect  in  both  depends  on  the 
coagulation  and  concretion  of  the  black  touches  into  masses 
relieved  only  by  interspersed  sparkling  grains  of  incised  light, 
presenting  the  realistic  and  vital  portraiture  of  both  ladies 
with  no  more  labour  than  would  occupy  the  draughtsman  but 
a  few  minutes,  and  the  engraver  perhaps  an  hour  or  two.  It 
is  true  that  the  features  of  the  elder  of  the  two  friends  might 
be  supposed  to  yield  themselves  without  difficulty  to  the  effect 
of  the  irregular  and  blunt  lines  which  are  employed  to  repro- 
duce them  ;  but  it  is  a  matter  of  no  small  wonderment  to  see 
the  delicate  pi'ofile  and  softly  rounded  features  of  the  younger 
lady  suggested  by  an  outline  which  must  have  been  drawn  in 
the  course  of  a  few  seconds,  and  by  some  eight  or  ten  firmly 
swept  parallel  pen  strokes  right  across  the  cheek. 

I  must  ask  you  especially  to  note  the  successful  result  of 
this  easy  method  of  obtaining  an  even  tint,  because  it  is  the 
propel-,  and  the  inexorably  required,  method  of  shade  in 
classic  wood-engraving.  Recently,  very  I'emarkable  and  ad- 
mirable efforts  liave  been  made  by  American  artists  to  repre- 


78  THE  ART  OF  ENGLAND. 

sent  flesli  tints  with  fine  textures  of  crossed  white  lines  and 
spots.  But  all  such  attempts  are  futile  ;  it  is  an  optical  law 
that  transpfirency  in  shadows  can  only  be  obtained  by  dark 
lines  with  white  spaces,  not  white  lines  with  dark  spaces. 
For  what  we  feel  to  be  transparency  in  any  colour  or  any 
atmosphere,  consists  in  the  penetration  of  darkness  by  a  more 
distant  light,  not  in  the  subduing  of  light  by  a  more  distant 
darkness.  A  snowstorm  seen  white  on  a  dark  sky  gives  us  no 
idea  of  transparency',  but  rain  between  us  and  a  rainbow  does  ; 
and  so  throughout  all  the  expedients  of  chiaroscuro  drawing 
and  painting,  transparent  effects  are  produced  by  lajang  dark 
over  light,  and  opaque  by  laying  light  over  dark.  It  wouM 
be  tedious  in  a  lecture  to  press  these  technical  principles 
farther  ;  it  is  enough  that  I  should  state  the  general  law,  and 
its  practical  consequence,  that  no  wood-engraver  need  attempt 
to  copy  Correggio  or  Guido  ;  his  business  is  not  with  com- 
plexions, but  with  characters  ;  and  his  fame  is  to  rest,  not  on 
the  perfection  of  his  work,  but  on  its  propriety. 

I  must  in  the  next  place  ask  you  to  look  at  the  aphorisms 
given  as  an  art  catechism  in  the  second  chapter  of  the  '  Laws 
of  Fesole.'  One  of  the  principal  of  these  gives  the  student, 
as  a  test  by  which  to  recognize  good  colour,  that  all  the  white 
in  the  picture  is  jjreciouft,  and  all  the  black,  conspicuous;  not 
by  the  quantity  of  it,  but  the  impassable  difference  between 
it  and  all  the  coloured  spaces. 

The  rule  is  just  as  true  for  wood-cutting.  In  fine  examples 
of  it,  the  black  is  left  for  local  colour  only — for  dark  dresses, 
or  dark  patterns  on  light  ones,  dark  hair,  or  dark  ejes  ;  it  is 
never  left  for  general  gloom,  out  of  which  the  figures  emerge 
like  spectres. 

When,  however,  a  number  of  Mi*.  Du  Maurier's  compositions 
are  seen  together,  and  compared  with  the  natural  simplicity 
and  aerial  space  of  Leech's,  they  will  be  felt  to  depend  on  this 
principle  too  absolutely  and  undisguisedly  ;  so  that  the  quar- 
terings  of  black  and  white  in  them  sometimes  look  more  like 
a  chess-board  than  a  picture.  But  in  minor  and  careful  pas- 
sages, his  method  is  wholly  exemplary,  and  in  the  next  ex- 
ample   I  enlarge  for  you, — Alderman  Sir  Robert  admiring 


THE  FTRESTDE.  79 

the  portraits  of  the  Ducliess  and  the  Colonel, — he  has  not 
only  shown  you  every  principle  of  wood-cutting,  but  abstracted 
for  you  also  the  laws  of  beauty,  whose  definite  and  every  year 
more  emphatic  assertion  in  the  pages  of  'Punch 'is the  ruling 
charm  and  most  legitimate  pride  of  the  immortal  periodical. 
Day  by  day  the  search  for  grotesque,  ludicrous,  or  loathsome 
subject  which  degraded  the  caricatures  in  its  original,  the 
'Charivari,'  and  renders  the  dismally  comic  journals  of  Italy 
the  mere  plagues  and  cancers  of  the  State,  became,  in  our 
English  satirists,  an  earnest  comparison  of  the  things  which 
were  graceful  and  honourable,  with  those  which  were  grace- 
less and  dishonest,  in  modern  life.'  Gradually  the  kind  and 
vivid  genius  of  John  Leech,  capable  in  its  brightness  of  find- 
ing pretty  jest  in  everything,  but  capable  in  its  tenderness 
also  of  rejoicing  in  the  beauty  of  everything,  softened  and 
illumined  with  its  loving  wit  the  entire  scope  of  English  social 
scene  ;  the  graver  power  of  Tenniel  brought  a  steady  tone 
and  law  of  morality  into  the  license  of  political  contention  ; 
and  finally  the  acute,  highly  trained,  and  accurately  physio- 
logical observation  of  Du  Maurier  traced  for  us,  to  its  true 
origin  in  vice  or  virtue,  every  order  of  expression  in  the  mixed 
circle  of  metropolitan  rank  and  wealth  :  and  has  done  so  with 
a  closeness  of  delineation  the  Hke  of  which  has  not  been  seen 
since  Holbein,  and  deserving  the  most  respectful  praise  in 
that,  whatever  power  of  satire  it  may  reach  by  the  selection 
and  assemblage  of  telling  points  of  character,  it  never  degen- 
erates into  caricature.  Nay,  the  terrific  force  of  blame  which 
he  obtains  by  collecting,  as  here  in  the  profile  of  the  Knight- 
Alderman,  features  separately  faultful  into  the  closest  focus, 
depends  on  the  very  fact  that  they  are  not  caricatured. 

Thus  far,  the  justice  of  the  most  careful  criticism  may  grate- 
fully ratify  the  applause  with  which  the  works  of  these  three 
artists  have  been  received  by  the  British  pubhc.  Rapidly  I 
must  now  glance  at  the  conditions  of  defect  which  must  neces- 
sarily occiu*  in  art  primarily  intended  to  amuse  the  multitude, 
and  which  can  therefore  only  be  for  moments  serious,  and  by 
stealth  didactic. 

In  the  first  place,  you  must  be  clear  about  '  Punch's '  poli< 


so  THE  ART  OF  ENGLAND. 

tics.  He  is  a  polite  Whig,  with  a  sentimental  respect  for  the 
Crown,  and  a  practical  respect  for  property.  He  steadily 
flattei-s  Lord  Palmerston,  from  his  heart  adores  Mr.  Gladstone; 
steadily,  but  not  virulently,  caricatures  Mr.  D'lsraeli ;  \iolently 
and  virulently  castigates  assault  upon  property,  in  any  kind, 
and  holds  up  for  the  general  ideal  of  perfection,  to  be  aimed 
at  by  all  the  children  of  heaven  and  earth,  the  British  Hunt- 
ing Squire,  the  British  Colonel,  and  the  British  Sailor. 

Primarily,  the  British  Hunting  Squire,  with  his  family. 
The  most  beautiful  sketch  by  Leech  throughout  his  career, 
and,  on  the  whole,  in  all  '  Punch,'  I  take  to  be  Miss  Alice  on 
her  father's  horse  ; — her,  with  thi'ee  or  four  more  young  Dians, 
I  had  put  in  one  frame  for  you,  but  found  they  ran  each  other 
too  hard, — being  in  each  case  tj'pical  of  what  '  Punch  '  thinks 
every  young  lady  ought  to  be.  He  has  never  fairly  asked  how 
far  every  young  lady  can  be  like  them  ;  nor  has  he  in  a  single 
instance  endeavoured  to  represent  the  beauty  of  the  poor. 

On  the  contrary,  his  witness  to  their  degradation,  as  inevi- 
table in  the  circumstances  of  their  London  life,  is  constant,  and 
for  the  most  part,  contemptuous  ;  nor  can  I  more  sternly  en- 
force what  I  have  said  at  various  times  on  that  subject  than 
by  placing  permanently  in  your  schools  the  cruelly  true  de- 
sign of  Du  Maurier,  representing  the  London  mechanic  with 
his  farail}',  when  Mr.  Todeson  is  asked  to  amuse  'the  dear 
creati^res '  at  Lady  Clara's  garden  tea. 

I  show  you  for  comparison  with  it,  to-day,  a  little  paiating 
of  a  country  girl  of  our  Westmoreland  type,  which  I  have 
given  to  our  Conistou  children's  school,  to  show  our  hill  and 
vale-bred  lassies  that  God  will  take  care  of  their  good  looks 
for  them,  even  thougli  He  may  have  appointed  for  them  the 
toil  of  the  women  of  Sarepta  and  Samaria,  in  being  gatherers 
of  wood  and  drawers  of  water. 

I  cannot  say  how  far  with  didactic  purpose,  or  how  far  in 
carelessly  inevitable  satire,  '  Punch '  contrasts  with  the  disgrace 
of  street  poverty  the  beauties  of  the  London  drawing-room, 
— the  wives  and  daughters  of  the  gi-eat  upper  middle  class, 
exalted  by  the  wealth  of  the  capital,  and  of  the  larger  manu- 
facturing towns. 


THE  FIRESIDE.  81 

These  are^  with  few  exceptions,  represented  either  as  receiv- 
ing' company,  or  reclining  on  sofas  in  extremely  elegant  morn- 
ing dresses,  and  surrounded  by  charming  children,  with  whom 
they  are  usually  too  idle  to  play.  The  children  are  extremely 
intelligent,  and  often  exquisitely  pretty,  yet  dependent  for 
great  part  of  their  charm  on  the  dressing  of  their  back  hair, 
and  the  fitting  of  their  boous.  As  the}'  grow  up,  their  girlish 
beauty  is  more  and  more  fixed  in  an  expression  of  more  or 
less  self-satished  pride  and  pi'actised  apathy.  There  is  no  ex- 
ample in  '  Punch '  of  a  girl  in  society  whose  face  expresses 
humility  or  enthusiasm — except  in  mistaken  directions  and 
foolish  degrees.  It  is  true  that  only  in  these  mistaken  feeL 
ings  can  be  found  palpable  material  for  jest,  and  that  much 
of  'Punch's'  satire  is  well  intended  and  just. 

It  seems  to  have  been  hitherto  impossible,  when  once  the 
zest  of  satirical  humoui  is  felt,  even  by  so  kind  and  genial  a 
heart  as  John  Leech's,  to  restrain  it,  and  to  elevate  it  into  the 
playfulness  of  praise.  In  the  designs  of  Richter,  of  which  I 
have  so  often  spoken,  among  scenes  of  domestic  beauty  and 
pathos,  he  continually  introduces  httle  pieces  of  play, — such, 
for  instance,  as  that  of  the  design  of  the  '  Wide,  Wide  World,' 
in  which  the  very  young  pujDj^y,  with  its  paws  on  its — rela- 
tively as  young — master's  shoulder,  looks  out  with  him  over 
the  fence  of  their  cottage  garden.  And  it  is  surely  conceiv- 
able that  some  day  the  rich  power  of  a  true  humorist  may  be 
given  to  express  more  vividly  the  comic  side  which  exists  in 
many  beautiful  incidents  of  daily  life,  and  refuse  at  last  to 
dwell,  even  with  a  smile,  on  its  follies. 

This,  however,  must  clearly  be  a  condition  of  future  human 
development,  for  hitherto  the  perfect  power  of  seizing  comic 
incidents  has  always  been  associated  with  some  liking  for 
ugliness,  and  some  exultation  in  disaster.  The  law  holds  — 
and  holds  with  no  relaxation — even  in  the  instance  of  so  wise 
and  benevolent  a  man  as  the  Swiss  schoolmaster,  TopfFer, 
whose  death,  a  few  years  since,  left  none  to  succeed  him  ip 
perfection  of  pure  linear  caricature.  He  can  do  more  witL 
fewer  Unes  than  any  draughtsman  known  to  me,  and  in  sev- 
eral plates  of  his  '  Histoire  d'Albert,'  has  succeeded  in  entirely 
6 


S2  THE  ART  OF  ENGLAND. 

representing  the  tenor  of  conversation  with  no  more  than  halt 
the  profile  and  one  eye  of  the  speaker. 

He  generally  took  a  walking  tour  through  Switzerland,  with 
his  pupils,  in  the  summer  holidays,  and  illustrated  his  ex- 
quisitely humorous  diary  of  their  adventures  with  pen 
sketches,  which  show  a  capacity  of  appreciating  beautiful 
landscape  as  great  as  his  grotesque  faculty  ;  but  his  mind  is 
drawn  away  from  the  most  sublime  scene,  in  a  moment,  to 
the  diflSculties  of  the  halting-place,  or  the  rascalities  of  the 
inn  ;  and  his  power  is  never  so  marvellously  exerted  as  in  de- 
picting a  gi'oup  of  roguish  guides,  shameless  beggars,  or 
hopeless  cretins. 

Nevertheless,  with  these  and  such  other  materials  as  our 
European  masters  of  physiognomy  have  furnished  in  por- 
traiture of  their  nations,  I  can  see  my  way  to  the  arrange- 
ment of  very  curious  series  of  illusti'ations  of  character,  if 
only  I  could  also  see  my  way  to  some  place  wherein  to  ex- 
hibit them. 

I  said  in  my  opening  lecture  that  I  hoped  the  studies  of  the 
figure  initiated  by  Mr.  Richmond  might  be  found  consistent 
with  the  slighter  practice  in  my  own  schools  ;  and  I  must 
say,  in  passing,  that  the  only  real  hindrance  to  this,  but  at 
present  an  insuperable  one,  is  want  of  room.  It  is  a  some- 
what characteristic  fact,  expressive  of  the  tendencies  of  this 
age,  that  Oxford  thinks  nothing  of  spending  £150,000  for  the 
elevation  and  ornature,  in  a  style  as  inherently  con-upt  as  it 
is  un-English,  of  the  rooms  for  the  torture  and  shame  of  her 
scholars,  which  to  all  practical  purposes  might  just  as  well 
have  been  inflicted  on  them  in  her  college  halls,  or  her  pro- 
fessors' drawing-rooms  ;  but  that  the  only  place  where  her 
art-workmen  can  be  taught  to  draw,  is  the  cellar  of  her  old 
Taylor  buildings,  and  the  only  place  where  her  art-pi'ofessor 
can  store  the  cast  of  a  statue,  is  his  own  private  office  in  the 
gallery  above. 

Pending  the  now  indispensable  addition  of  some  rude  work- 
room to  the  Taylor  galleries,  in  which  study  of  the  figure  may 
be  caiTied  on  under  a  competent  master,  I  have  lent,  from  the 
drawings  belonging  to  the  St.  George's  Guild,  such  studies  of 


THE  FIRESIDE.  83 

Venetian  pictures  as  may  form  the  taste  of  the  figure-student 
in  general  composition,  and  I  have  presented  to  the  Ruskin 
schools  twelve  principal  drawings  out  of  Aliss  Alexander's 
Tuscan  book,  which  may  be  standards  of  method,  in  drawing 
from  the  life,  to  students  capable  of  as  determined  industry. 
But,  no  less  for  the  better  guidance  of  the  separate  figure 
class  in  the  room  which  I  hope  one  day  to  see  built,  than  for 
immediate  help  in  such  irregular  figure  study  as  may  be  pos- 
sible under  present  conditions,  I  find  myself  grievously  in 
want  of  such  a  grammar  of  the  laws  of  harmony  in  the  human 
form  and  face  as  may  be  consistent  with  whatever  accurate 
knowledge  of  elder  races  may  have  been  obtained  by  recent 
anthropology,  and  at  the  same  time  authoritative  in  its  state- 
ment of  the  effect  on  human  expression,  of  the  various  mental 
states  and  passions.  And  it  seems  to  me  that  by  arranging  in 
groups  capable  of  easy  comparison,  the  examples  of  similar 
expression  given  by  the  masters  whose  work  we  have  been  re- 
viewing, we  may  advance  further  such  a  science  of  physiog- 
nomy as  will  be  morally  useful,  than  by  any  quantity  of 
measuring  of  savage  crania  :  and  if,  therefore,  among  the 
rudimentary  series  in  the  art  schools  you  find,  before  I  can 
get  the  new  explanatory  catalogues  printed,  some  more  or  less 
systematic  gi'oups  of  heads  collected  out  of  '  Punch,'  you  must 
not  think  that  I  am  doing  this  merely  for  your  amusement,  or 
that  such  examples  are  beneath  the  dignity  of  academical  in- 
struction. My  own  belief  is  that  the  ditference  between  the 
features  of  a  good  and  a  bad  servant,  of  a  churl  and  a  gentle- 
man, is  a  much  more  useful  and  interesting  subject  of  en- 
quiry than  the  gradations  of  snub  nose  or  flat  forehead  which 
became  extinct  with  the  Dodo,  or  the  insertions  of  muscle 
and  articulations  of  joint  which  are  common  to  the  flesh  of  all 
humanity. 

Returning  to  our  immediate  subject,  and  considering 
'  Punch  '  as  the  expression  of  the  popular  voice,  which  he  vir- 
tually is,  and  even  somewhat  obsequiously,  is  it  not  wonder- 
ful that  he  has  never  a  word  to  say  for  the  British  manufac- 
turer, and  that  the  true  citizen  of  his  own  city  is  represented 
by  him  only  under  the  types,  either  of  Sir  Pompey  Bedell  or 


84  THE  ART  OF  ENGLAND. 

of  the  more  tranquil  magnate  and  potentate,  the  bulwark  of 
British  constitutional  principles  and  initiator  of  British  pri- 
vate enterprise,  j\Ir.  John  Smith,  whose  biography  is  given 
with  becoming  reverence  by  Miss  Ingelow,  in  the  last  but  one 
of  her  '  Stories  told  to  a  Child '  ?  And  is  it  not  also  surely 
some  overruling  power  in  the  nature  of  things,  quite  other 
than  the  desire  of  his  readers,  which  compels  IVIr.  Punch, 
when  the  squire,  the  colonel,  and  the  admiral  are  to  be  at  once 
expressed,  together  with  all  that  they  legislate  or  fight  for,  in 
the  symbolic  figure  of  the  nation,  to  represent  the  incarnate 
John  Bull  always  as  a  farmer, — never  as  a  manufacturer  or 
shopkeeper,  and  to  conceive  and  exhibit  him  rather  as  pay- 
master for  the  faults  of  his  neighbours,  than  as  watching  for 
opportunity  of  gain  out  of  their  follies  ? 

It  had  been  well  if  either  under  this  accepted,  though  now 
antiquated,  type,  or  under  the  more  poetical  symbols  of  Bri- 
tannia, or  the  British  Lion,  '  Punch '  had  ventured  of  tener  to 
intimate  the  exact  degree  in  which  the  nation  was  following 
its  ideal ;  and  marked  the  occasions  when  Britannia's  crest 
began  too  fatally  to  lose  its  resemblance  to  Athena's,  and  liken 
itself  to  an  ordinary  cockscomb, — or  when  the  British  Lion 
had — of  course  only  for  a  moment,  and  probably  in  pecuniary 
difficulties — di'opped  his  tail  between  his  legs. 

But  the  aspects  under  which  either  British  Lion,  Gallic 
eagle,  or  Russian  bear  have  been  regarded  by  our  contem- 
plative serial,  are  unfortunately  dependent  on  the  fact  that  all 
his  three  great  designei's  are,  in  the  most  naiTow  sense,  Lon- 
don citizens.  I  have  said  that  every  great  man  belongs  not 
onl}^  to  his  own  city  but  to  his  own  village.  The  artists  of 
'  Punch '  have  no  village  to  belong  to  ;  for  them,  the  street 
corner  is  the  face  of  the  whole  earth,  and  the  two  only  quar- 
ters of  the  heavenly  horizon  are  the  east  and  west — End. 
And  although  Leech's  conception  of  the  Distinguished  For- 
eigner, Du  Maurier's  of  the  Herr  Professor,  and  Tenniel's  of 
La  Liberte,  or  La  France,  are  all  extremely  true  and  delight- 
ful— to  the  supei-ficial  extent  of  the  sketch  by  Dickens  in 
'  Mrs.  Lirriper's  Lodgings,' — they  are,  effectively,  all  seen 
with  Mrs.  Lirriper's  eyes  ;  they  virtually  represent  of  the  Con- 


THE  FIRESIDE.  85 

iinent  little  more  than  the  upper  town  of  Boulogne  ;  nor  has 
anything  yet  been  done  by  all  the  wit  and  all  the  kindness  of 
these  great  popular  designers  to  deepen  the  reliance  of  any 
European  nation  on  the  good  qualities  of  its  neighbours. 

You  no  doubt  have  at  the  Union  the  most  interesting  and 
beautiful  series  of  the  Tenniel  cartoons  which  have  been  col- 
lectively jDublished,  Avith  the  explanation  of  their  motives.  If 
you  begin  with  No.  38,  you  will  find  a  consecutive  series  of 
ten  extremely  forcible  drawings,  casting  the  utmost  obloquy 
in  the  power  of  the  designer  upon  the  French  Empei-or,  the 
Pope,  and  the  Italian  clergy,  and  alike  discourteous  to  the 
head  of  the  nation  which  had  fought  side  by  side  w-ith  us  at 
Inkerman,  and  impious  in  its  representation  of  the  CathoHc 
power  to  which  Italy  owed,  and  still  owes,  whatever  has  made 
her  glorious  among  the  nations  of  Christendom,  or  happy 
among  the  families  of  the  earth. 

Among  them  you  will  find  other  two,  representing  our 
wars  with  China,  and  the  triumph  of  our  missionary  manner 
of  compelling  free  trade  at  the  point  of  the  bayonet :  while, 
for  the  close  and  consummation  of  the  series,  you  will  see  the 
genius  and  valour  of  your  country  figuratively  summed  in  the 
tableau,  subscribed, — 

'  John  Bull  defends  his  pudding.' 

Is  this  indeed  then  the  final  myth  of  English  heroism,  into 
which  King  Arthur,  and  St.  George,  and  Britannia,  and  the 
British  Lion  are  all  collated,  concluded,  and  pei'fected  by 
Evolution,  in  the  literal  words  of  Carlyle,  '  like  four  whale 
cubs  combined  by  boiling '  ?  Do  you  wish  your  Queen  in 
future  to  style  herself  Placentae,  instead  of  Fidei  Defensor  ? 
and  is  it  to  your  pride,  to  your  hope,  or  even  to  your  pleas- 
ure, that  this  once  sacred  as  well  as  sceptred  island  of  yours, 
in  whose  second  capital  city  Constantine  was  crowned  ; — to 
whose  shores  St.  Augustine  and  St.  Columba  brought  bene- 
diction ; — who  gave  her  Lion-heai'ts  to  the  Tombs  of  the 
East, — her  Pilgrim  Fathers  to  the  Cradle  of  the  West ; — who 
has  wrapped  the  sea  round  her  for  her  mantle,  and  breatheg 
with  her  strong  bosom  the  air  of  every  sign  in  heaven  ; — is  it 


8C  THE  ART  OF  ENGLAND. 

to  your  good  pleasure  tliat  the  Hero-cliiklren  bora  to  her  in 
these  latter  days  should  Mrite  no  loftier  legend  on  their 
shields  than  '  John  Bull  defends  his  pudding  '  ? 

I  chanced  only  the  other  day  on  a  minor,  yet,  to  my  own 
mind,  very  frightful  proof  of  the  extent  to  which  this  caitifl 
symbol  is  fastening  itself  in  the  popular  mind.  I  was  in 
search  of  some  extremely  pastoral  musical  instrument, 
whereby  to  regulate  the  songs  of  our  Coniston  village  chil- 
dren, without  the  requirement  of  peculiar  skiU  either  in 
master  or  monitor.  But  the  only  means  of  melody  offered  to 
me  by  the  trade  of  the  neighbourhood  was  this  so-called  '  har- 
monicon,' — purchaseable,  according  to  your  present  notions, 
cheaply,  for  a  shilling ;  and  with  this  piece  of  cheerful  my- 
thology on  its  lid  gratis,  wherein  you  see  what  '  Gradus  ad 
Pamassum  '  we  prepare  for  the  rustic  mind,  and  that  the 
virtue  and  the  jollity  of  England  are  vested  only  in  the  money- 
bag in  each  hand  of  him.  I  shall  place  this  harmonicon  lid  in 
your  schools,  among  my  examples  of  what  we  call  liberal  edu- 
cation,— and,  with  it,  what  instances  I  can  find  of  the  way 
Florence,  Siena,  or  Venice  taught  their  people  to  regard 
themselves. 

For,  indeed,  in  many  a  past  year,  it  has  every  now  and 
then  been  a  subject  of  recurring  thought  to  me,  what  such  a 
genius  as  that  of  Tenniel  w-ould  have  done  for  us,  had  we 
asked  the  best  of  it,  and  had  the  feeling  of  the  nation  respect- 
ing the  arts,  as  a  record  of  its  honour,  been  like  that  of  the 
Italians  in  their  proud  days.  To  some  extent,  the  memory  of 
our  bravest  war  has  been  preserved  for  us  by  the  pathetic 
force  of  Mrs.  Butler ;  but  her  conceptions  are  realistic  only, 
and  rather  of  thrilling  episodes  than  of  great  military  prin- 
ciple and  thought.  On  the  conti-ary,  Tenniel  has  much  of  the 
largeness  and  symbolic  mysteiy  of  imagination  which  belong 
to  the  great  leaders  of  classic  art :  in  the  shadowy  masses 
and  sweeping  lines  of  his  great  compositions,  there  are  ten- 
dencies which  might  have  won  his  adoption  into  the  school 
of  Tintoret ;  and  his  scorn  of  whatever  seems  to  him  dis- 
honest or  contemptible  in  rehgion,  would  have  translated 
itself  into  awe  in  the  presence  of  its  vital  power. 


THE  FIRESIDE.  87 

I  gave  you,  when  first  I  came  to  Oxford,  Tintoret's  picture 
of  the  Doge  Mocenigo,  with  his  divine  spiritual  attendants,  in 
the  cortile  of  St.  Mark's.  It  is  surely  our  own  fault,  more 
than  Mr.  Tenniel's,  if  the  best  portraits  he  can  give  us  of  the 
heads  of  our  English  government  should  be  rather  on  the  oc- 
casion of  their  dinner  at  Greenwich  than  their  devotion  at  St. 
Paul's. 

My  time  has  been  too  long  spent  in  carping  ; — but  yet  the 
faults  which  I  have  pointed  out  were  such  as  could  scarcely 
occur  to  you  without  some  such  indication,  and  which  gravely 
need  your  observance,  and,  as  far  as  3'ou  are  accountable  for 
them,  your  repentance.  I  can  best  briefly,  in  conclusion,  de- 
fine what  I  would  fain  have  illustrated  at  length,  the  charm, 
in  this  art  of  the  Fireside,  which  you  tacitly  feel,  and  have 
every  rational  ground  to  rejoice  in.  With  whatever  restriction 
you  should  receive  the  flattery,  and  with  whatever  caution  the 
guidance,  of  these  great  illustrators  of  your  daily  life,  this  at 
least  you  may  thankfully  recognize  in  the  sum  of  their  work, 
that  it  contains  the  evidence  of  a  prevalent  and  crescent  beauty 
and  energy  in  the  youth  of  our  day,  which  may  justify  the 
most  discontented  '  laudator  temporis  acti '  in  leaving  the  fu- 
ture happily  in  their  hands.  The  witness  of  ancient  art  points 
often  to  a  general  and  equal  symmetry  of  body  and  mind  in 
well  trained  races  ;  but  at  no  period,  so  far  as  I  am  able  to 
gather  by  the  most  careful  comparison  of  existing  portraiture, 
has  there  ever  been  a  loveliness  so  variably  refined,  so  modestly, 
and  kindly  virtuous,  so  innocently  fantastic,  and  so  daintily 
pure,  as  the  present  girl-beauty  of  our  British  Islands :  and 
whatever,  for  men  now  entering  on  the  main  battle  of  life, 
may  be  the  confused  temptations  or  inevitable  errors  of  a  pe- 
riod of  moral  doubt  and  social  change,  my  own  experience  of 
help  already  received  from  the  younger  members  of  this  Uni- 
versity, is  enough  to  assure  me  that  there  has  been  no  time, 
in  all  the  pride  of  the  past,  when  their  country  might  more 
serenely  trust  in  the  glory  of  her  youth  ; — when  her  prosperity 
was  mote  secure  in  their  genius,  or  her  honour  in  their  hearta 


88  THE  ART   OF  ENGLAND. 

LECTURE  VI. 

The  Hill-Side. 

GEORGE    ROESON    AND    COPLET   FIELDING. 

In  the  five  preceding  lectures  given  this  year,  I  have  en= 
deavoured  to  generalize  the  most  noteworthy  facts  respecting 
the  religious,  legendary,  classic,  and,  in  two  kinds,  domestic, 
art  of  England.  There  remains  yet  to  be  defined  one,  far- 
away, and,  in  a  manner,  outcast,  school,  which  belongs  as  yet 
wholly  to  the  present  century  ;  and  which,  if  we  were  to  trust 
to  appearances,  would  exclusively  and  for  ever  belong  to  it, 
neither  having  been  known  before  our  time,  nor  surviving 
aftei'wards, — the  art  of  landscape. 

Not  known  before, — except  as  a  trick,  or  a  pastime  ;  not 
surviving  afterwards,  because  we  seem  straight  on  the  way  to 
pass  our  lives  in  cities  twenty  miles  wide,  and  to  travel  from 
each  of  them  to  the  next,  underground  :  outcast  now,  even 
while  it  retains  some  vague  hold  on  old-fashioned  peojDle's 
minds,  since  the  best  existing  examples  of  it  are  placed  by 
the  authorities  of  the  National  Gallery  in  a  cellar  lighted  by 
only  two  windows,  and  those  at  the  bottom  of  a  well,  blocked 
by  four  dead  brick  walls  fifty  feet  high. 

Notwithstanding  these  discouragements,  I  am  still  minded 
to  carr}'  out  the  design  in  which  the  so-called  Ruskin  schools 
were  founded,  that  of  arranging  in  them  a  code  of  elementary 
practice,  which  should  secure  the  skill  of  the  student  in  the 
department  of  landscape  before  he  entered  on  the  branches 
of  art  requiring  higher  genius.  Nay,  I  am  more  than  ever 
minded  to  fulfil  my  former  pui-pose  now,  in  the  exact  degree 
in  which  I  see  the  advantages  of  such  a  method  denied  or 
refused  in  other  academies  ;  and  the  beauty  of  natural  scenery 
increasingly  in  danger  of  destruction  by  the  gross  interests 
and  disquieting  pleasures  of  the  citizen.  For  indeed,  as  I 
before  stated  to  you,  when  first  I  undertook  the  duties  of  this 
professorship,  my  own  personal  liking  for  landscape  made  me 


TRE  HILLSIDE.  89 

extremely  guarded  in  recommending  its  study.  I  only  gave 
three  lectures  on  landscape  in  six  years,  and  I  never  published 
them  ;  my  hope  and  endeavour  was  to  connect  the  study  of 
Nature  for  you  with  that  of  History  ;  to  make  you  interested 
in  Greek  legend  as  well  as  in  Greek  lakes  and  limestone  ;  to 
acquaint  you  with  the  relations  of  northern  hills  and  rivers  to 
the  schools  of  Christian  Theology  ;  and  of  Renaissance  town- 
life  to  the  rage  of  its  infidelity.  But  I  have  done  enough, — ■ 
and  more  than  enough, — according  to  my  time  of  life,  in  these 
directions  ;  and  now,  justified,  I  trust,  in  your  judgment,  from 
the  charge  of  weak  concession  to  my  own  predilections,  I  shall 
arrange  the  exercises  required,  consistently  from  my  drawing- 
classes,  with  quite  primary  refei-ence  to  landscape  art ;  and 
teach  the  early  philosophy  of  beauty,  under  laws  liable  to  no 
dispute  by  human  passion,  but  secure  in  the  grace  of  Earth, 
and  light  of  Heaven. 

And  I  wish  in  the  present  lecture  to  define  to  you  the 
nature  and  meaning  of  landscape  art,  as  it  arose  in  England 
eighty  years  ago,  without  reference  to  the  great  master  whose 
works  have  been  the  principal  subject  of  my  own  enthusiasm. 
J  have  always  stated  distinctly  that  the  genius  of  Turner  was 
exceptional,  both  in  its  kind  and  in  its  height :  and  although 
his  elementary  modes  of  work  are  beyond  dispute  authorita- 
tive, and  the  best  that  can  be  given  for  example  and  exercise, 
the  general  tenor  of  his  design  is  entirely  beyond  the  accept- 
ance of  common  knowledge,  and  even  of  safe  sympathy.  For 
in  his  extreme  sadness,  and  in  the  morbid  tones  of  mind  out 
of  which  it  arose,  he  is  one  with  Byron  and  Goethe  ;  and  is 
no  more  to  be  held  representative  of  general  English  land- 
scape art  than  Childe  Harold  or  Faust  are  exponents  of  the 
total  love  of  Nature  expressed  in  English  or  German  litera- 
ture. To  take  a  single  illustrative  instance,  there  is  no  fore- 
ground of  Turner's  in  which  you  can  find  a  flower. 

In  some  respects,  indeed,  the  vast  strength  of  this  unfol- 
lowable  Eremite  of  a  master  was  crushing,  instead  of  edifying, 
to  the  English  schools.  All  the  true  and  strong  men  who 
were  his  contemporaries  shrank  from  the  slightest  attempt  at 
rivalry  with  hin\  on  his  own  lines ; — and  his  own  lines  were 


90  THE  ART  OF  ENGLAND. 

cast  far.  But  for  him,  Stanfield  miglit  have  sometimes  paint, 
ed  an  Alpine  valley,  or  a  Biscay  storm  ;  but  the  moment  there 
was  any  question  of  rendering  magnitude,  or  terror,  every 
effort  became  puny  beside  Turner,  and  Stanfield  meekly  re- 
signed himself  to  potter  all  his  life  round  the  Isle  of  Wight, 
and  paint  the  Needles  on  one  side,  and  squalls  off  Cowes  on 
the  other.  In  like  manner,  Copley  Fielding  in  his  young 
days  painted  vigorously  in  oil,  and  showed  promise  of  attain- 
ing considerable  dignity  in  classic  composition  ;  but  the 
moment  Turner's  Garden  of  Hesperides  and  Building  of 
Carthage  appeared  in  the  Academy,  there  was  an  end  to  am- 
bition in  that  direction  ;  and  thenceforth  Fielding  settled 
down  to  his  quiet  presidency  of  the  old  "VYater-colour  Society, 
and  painted,  in  unassuming  replicas,  his  passing  showers  iu 
the  Highlands,  and  sheep  on  the  South  Downs. 

Which  are,  indeed,  for  most  of  us,  much  more  appropriate 
objects  of  contemplation  ;  and  the  old  water-colour  I'oom  at 
that  time,  adorned  yearly  with  the  complete  year's  labour  of 
Fielding,  Eobson,  De  Wint,  Ban-ett,  Prout,  and  William 
Hunt,  presented  an  aggregate  of  unaffected  pleasantness  and 
truth,  the  like  of  which,  if  you  could  now  see,  after  a  morn- 
ing spent  among  the  enormities  of  luscious  and  exotic  art 
which  frown  or  glare  along  your  miles  of  exhibition  wall, 
would  really  be  felt  by  you  to  possess  the  charm  of  a  bouquet 
of  bluebells  and  cowslips,  amidst  a  prize  show  of  cactus  and 
orchid  from  the  hothouses  of  Kew. 

The  root  of  this  delightfulness  was  an  extremely  rare  sin- 
cerity in  the  personal  pleasure  which  all  these  men  took,  not 
in  their  own  pictures,  but  in  the  subjects  of  them — a  form  of 
enthusiasm  which,  while  it  was  as  simple,  was  also  as  roman- 
tic, in  the  best  sense,  as  the  sentiment  of  a  young  girl :  and 
whose  nature  I  can  the  better  both  define  and  certify  to  you, 
because  it  was  the  impulse  to  which  I  owed  the  best  force  of 
my  own  life,  and  in  sympathy  with  which  I  have  done  or  said 
whatever  of  saying  or  doing  in  it  has  been  useful  to  others. 

When  I  spoke,  in  this  year's  fii'st  lecture,  of  Rossetti,  as  the 
chief  intellectual  force  in  the  establishment  of  the  modern 
Romantic  School ;  and  again  in  the  second  lecture  promised, 


THE  HILLSIDE.  91 

at  the  end  of  our  course,  the  collection  of  the  evidence  ol 
Romantic  passion  in  all  our  good  English  art,  you  will  find  it 
explained  at  the  same  time  that  I  do  not  use  the  Avord  Roman- 
tic as  opposed  to  Classic,  but  as  opposed  to  the  prosaic  char- 
acters of  selfishness  and  stupidity,  in  all  times,  and  among  all 
nations.  I  do  not  think  of  King  Arthur  as  opposed  to  The- 
seus, or  to  Valerius,  but  to  Alderman  Sir  Robert,  and  Mr. 
John  Smith.  And  therefore  I  opposed  the  child-Kke  love  of 
beautiful  things,  in  even  the  least  of  our  English  Modern 
Painters,  from  the  first  page  of  the  book  I  wrote  about  them 
to  the  last, — in  Greek  Art,  to  what  seemed  to  me  then  (and  in 
a  certain  sense  is  demonstrably  to  me  now)  too  selfish  or  too 
formal, — and  in  Teutonic  Art,  to  what  was  cold  in  a  far 
worse  sense,  either  by  boorish  dulness  or  educated  affectation. 

I  think  the  two  best  central  types  of  Non-Romance,  of  the 
power  of  Absolute  Vvilgarity  in  selfishness,  as  distinguished 
from  the  eternal  dignity  of  Reverence  and  Love,  are  stamped 
for  you  on  the  two  most  finished  issues  of  your  English  cur- 
rency in  the  portraits  of  Henry  the  Eighth  and  Charles  the 
Second.  There  is  no  interfering  element  in  the  vulgarity  of 
them,  no  pardon  to  be  sought  in  their  poverty,  ignoi'ance,  or 
weakness.  Both  are  men  of  strong  powers  of  mind,  and  both 
well  informed  in  all  jiarticulars  of  human  knowledge  possible 
to  them.  But  in  the  one  you  see  the  destroyer,  according  to 
his  power,  of  English  religion  ;  and,  in  the  other,  the  destroyer, 
according  to  his  power,  of  English  morality  :  culminating 
types  to  you  of  whatever  in  the  spirit,  or  dispirit,  of  succeed- 
ing ages,  robs  God,  or  dishonours  man. 

I  named  to  you,  as  an  example  of  the  unromantic  art  which 
was  assailed  by  the  pre-Raphaelites,  Vandyke's  sketch  of  the 
'  Miraculous  Draught  of  Fishes.'  Very  near  it,  in  the"  National 
Gallery,  hangs  another  piscatory  subject,*  by  Teniers,  which 
I  Avill  ask  you  carefully  also  to  examine  as  a  perfect  type  of 
the  Unromantic  Art  which  was  assailed  by  the  gentle  enthusi- 

*  No.  817,  'Teniers' Chateau  at  Perck.'  The  expressions  touching  the 
Trant  of  light  in  it  are  a  little  violent,  being  strictly  accurate  only  of 
Buch  pictures  of  the  Dutch  school  as  Vanderueer's  'Evening  Landscape,' 
152,  and  '  Canal  Scene,'  732. 


02  THE  ART  OF  ENGLAND. 

asm  of  the  English  School  of  Landscape.  It  represents  a  few 
ordinary  Dutch  houses,  an  ordinary  Dutch  steeple  or  two, — 
some  still  more  ordinary  Dutch  trees, — and  most  ordinary 
Dutch  clouds,  assembled  in  contemplation  of  an  ordinary 
Dutch  duck-pond  ;  or,  perhaps,  in  respect  of  its  size,  we  may 
more  courteously  call  it  a  goose-pond.  All  these  objects  are 
painted  either  grey  or  brown,  and  the  atmosphere  is  of  the 
kind  which  looks  not  merely  as  if  the  sun  had  disappeared 
for  the  day,  but  as  if  he  had  gone  out  altogether,  and  left  a 
stable  lantern  instead.  The  total  effect  having  appeared,  even 
to  the  painter's  own  mind,  at  last  little  exhilatory,  he  has  en- 
livened it  by  three  figures  on  the  brink  of  the  goose-pond, — 
two  gentlemen  and  a  lady, — standing  all  three  perfectly  up- 
right, side  by  side,  in  court  dress,  the  gentlemen  with  expan- 
sive boots,  and  all  with  conical  hats  and  high  feathers.  In 
order  to  invest  these  characters  with  dramatic  interest,  a  rus- 
tic fisherman  presents  to  them  as  a  tribute, — or,  perhaps,  ex- 
hibits as  a  natviral  curiosity,  a  large  fish,  just  elicited  from  the 
goose-pond  by  his  adventurous  companions,  who  have  waded 
into  the  middle  of  it,  every  one  of  them,  with  singular  exacti- 
tude, up  to  the  calf  of  his  leg.  The  principles  of  National 
Gallery  arrangement  of  course  put  this  picture  on  the  line, 
while  Tintoret  *  and  Gainsboi'ough  are  hung  out  of  sight ;  but 
in  this  instance  I  hold  myself  fortunate  in  being  able  to  refer 
you  to  an  example,  so  conveniently  examinable,  of  the  utmost 
stoop  and  densest  level  of  human  stupidity  yet  fallen  to  by 
any  art  in  which  some  degree  of  manual  dexterity  is  essen- 
tial. 

This  crisis  of  degradation,  you  will  observe,  takes  place  at 
the  historical  moment  when  by  the  concurrent  power  of 
avaricioua  trade  on  one  side,  and  unrestrained  luxury  on  the 
other,  the  idea  of  any  but  an  earthly  interest,  and  any  but 
proud  or  carnal  pleasures,  had  been  virtually  effaced  through- 
out Europe  ;  and  men,  by  their  resolute  self-seeking,  had 
literally  at  last  ostracised  the  Spiritual  Sun  from  Heaven,  and 

*  The  large  new  Tintoret  wholly  so,  and  the  largest  Gainsborough,  the 
best  in  England  known  to  me,  used  merely  for  wall  furniture  at  thi'  top 
oi."  tlie  room. 


THE  HILLSIDE:  93 

lived  by  little  more  than  the  snuff  of  the  wick  of  their  own 
mental  stable  lantern. 

The  forms  of  romantic  art  hitherto  described  in  this  course 
of  lectures,  were  all  distinctly  reactionary  against  the  stupor 
of  this  Stygian  pool,  brooded  over  by  Batavian  fog.  But  the 
first  signs  of  re-awakening  in  the  vital  power  of  imagination 
were,  long  before,  seen  in  landscape  art.  Not  the  utmost 
strength  of  the  great  figure  painters  could  break  through  the 
bonds  of  the  flesh.  Reynolds  vainly  tried  to  substitute  the 
age  of  Innocence  for  the  experience  of  Religion — the  true 
genius  at  his  side  remained  always  Cupid  unbinding  the 
girdle  of  Venus.  Gainsborough  knew  no  goddesses  other 
than  Mrs.  Graham  or  Mrs.  Siddons  ;  Vandyke  and  Rubens, 
than  the  beauties  of  the  court,  or  the  graces  of  its  coi-pulent 
Mythology.  But  at  last  there  arose,  and  arose  inevitably,  a 
feeling  that,  if  not  any  more  in  Heaven,  at  least  in  the  solitary 
places  of  the  earth,  there  was  a  pleasure  to  be  found  based 
neither  on  pride  nor  sensuality. 

Among  the  least  attractive  of  the  mingled  examples  in  your 
school-alcove,  you  will  find  a  quiet  pencil-drawing  of  a  sunset 
at  Rome,  seen  from  beneath  a  deserted  arch,  whether  of 
Triumph  or  of  Peace.  Its  modest  art-skill  is  restricted  almost 
exclusively  to  the  expression  of  warm  light  in  the  low  har- 
mony of  evening  ;  but  it  differs  wholly  from  the  learned  com- 
posilions  and  skilled  artifices  of  former  painting  by  its  purity 
of  unaffected  pleasure  and  rest  in  the  little  that  is  given. 
Here,  at  last,  we  feel,  is  an  honest  Englishman,  who  has  got 
away  out  of  all  the  Camere,  and  the  Loggie,  and  the  Stanze, 
and  the  schools,  and  the  Disputas,  and  the  Incendios,  and  tlio 
Battaglias,  and  busts  of  this  god,  and  torsos  of  that,  and  the 
chatter  of  the  studio,  and  the  rush  of  the  corso  ; — and  has  laid 
himself  down,  with  his  own  poor  eyes  and  heart,  and  the  sun 
casting  its  light  between  ruins, — possessor,  he,  of  so  much  of 
the  evidently  blessed  peace  of  things, — he,  and  the  poor  lizard 
in  the  ci'anny  of  the  stones  beside  him. 

I  believe  that  with  the  name  of  Richard  "SVilson,  the  history 
of  sincere  landscape  art,  founded  on  a  meditative  love  of  Nat- 
ure, beofins  for  England  :  and,  I  may  add,  for  Europe,  without 


94  THE  ART  OF  ENGLAND. 

any  wide  extension  of  claim  ;  for  the  only  continental  land^ 
scape  work  of  any  sterling  merit  with  which  I  am  acquainted, 
consists  in  the  old-fashioned  drawings,  made  fifty  years  ago 
to  meet  the  demand  of  the  first  influx  of  British  travellers 
into  Switzerland  after  the  fall  of  Napoleon. 

With  Richard  Wilson,  at  all  events,  our  own  true  and  mod- 
est schools  began,  an  especial  direction  being  presently  given 
to  them  in  the  rendering  effects  of  aerial  perspective  by  the 
skill  in  water-colour  of  Girtiu  and  Coufiins.  The  drawings  of 
these  two  masters,  recently  bequeathed  to  the  British  Museum, 
and  I  hope  soon  to  be  placed  in  a  well-lighted  gallery,  contain 
quite  insuperable  examples  of  skill  in  the  management  of  clear 
tints,  and  of  the  meditative  charm  consisting  in  the  quiet  and 
unaffected  treatment  of  literally  true  scenes. 

But  the  impulse  to  which  the  new  school  owed  the  discovery 
of  its  power  in  colour  was  owing,  I  believe,  to  the  poetry  of 
Scott  and  Byron.  Both  by  their  vivid  passion  and  accurate 
description,  the  painters  of  their  day  were  taught  the  true  value 
of  natural  colour,  while  the  love  of  mountains,  common  to 
both  poets,  forced  their  illustrators  into  reverent  pilgrimage 
to  scenes  which  till  then  had  been  thought  too  desolate  for 
the  spectator's  interest,  or  too  difficult  for  the  painter's  skill. 

I  have  endeavoured,  in  the  92nd  number  of  '  Fors  Clavigera,' 
to  give  some  analysis  of  the  main  character  of  the  scenery  by 
which  Scott  was  inspired  ;  but,  in  endeavouring  to  mark  with 
distinctness  enough  the  dependence  of  all  its  sentiment  on  the 
beauty  of  its  rivers,  I  have  not  enough  referred  to  the  collat- 
eral charm,  in  a  Borderer's  mind,  of  the  very  mists  and  rain 
that  feed  them.  In  the  climates  of  Greece  and  Italy,  the  mo- 
notonous sunshine,  burning  away  the  deep  colours  of  every- 
thing into  white  and  grey,  and  wasting  the  strongest  mountain 
streams  into  threads  among  their  shingle,  alternates  with  the 
blue-fiery  thundercloud,  with  sheets  of  flooding  rain,  and  vol- 
leying musketry'  of  hail.  But  throughout  all  the  wild  uplands 
of  the  former  Saxon  kingdom  of  Northumbria,  from  Edwin's 
crag  to  Hilda's  cliff,  the  wreaths  of  sqftly  resting  mist,  and 
wandering  to  and  fro  of  capricious  shadows  of  clouds,  and 
drooping  swathes,  or  flying  fringes,  of  the  benignant  Avestern 


THE  IIILL-STDE.  95 

rain,  cherish,  on  every  moorland  summit,  the  deep-fibreJ  riiofes, 
— embahn  the  myrtle, — gild  the  asphodel, — eueliaiit  along  the 
valleys  the  wild  grace  of  their  -woods,  and  the  green  elf  land 
of  tlioir  meadows  ;  and  passing  away,  or  melting  into  the 
transincent  calm  of  mountain  air,  leave  to  the  open  sunshine 
a  world  -with  every  creature  ready  to  rejoice  in  its  comfort, 
and  every  rock  and  flower  rellecting  new  loveliness  to  its 
light. 

Perhaps  among  the  confusedly  miscellaneous  examples  of 
ancient  and  modern,  tropic  or  arctic  art,  with  wdiich  I  have 
filled  the  niches  of  your  schools,  one,  hitherto  of  the  least 
noticeable  cr  serviceable  to  you,  has  been  the  dark  Copley 
Fielding  dr;iwing  above  the  lire-place  ; — nor  am  I  afraid  of 
trusting  your  kindness  with  the  confession,  that  it  is  ])lacod 
there  more  in  menn)ry  of  my  old  master,  than  in  the  hojic  of 
its  proving  of  any  liA'ely  interest  or  use  to  you.  But  it  is  now 
some  fifty  years  since  it  w;is  brouglit  in  triumph  to  Heme 
Hill,  being  the  first  pi(_'ture  my  fiilher  ever  bought,  and  in  so 
far  the  foundation  of  tliC'  subsccpient  colli'ctiou,  some  part  of 
which  has  been  permitted  to  Ijccodk;  permanently  national  at 
Candjridge  and  Oxford.  Tlio  pleastiro  which  tliat  single 
drawing  gave  on  the  morning  of  its  installation  in  our  home 
was  greater  than  to  the  purchase!'  accustomed  to  these  timeg 
of  limitless  demand  and  supply  would  1)6  credible,  or  even 
eonceivalile  ;  — and  our  back  parlour  for  tliat  day  was  as  full 
of  stu'prise  and  gratulatit)n  as  evir  Ciinabue"s  joyful  liorgo. 

Tiie  drawing  represents,  as  you  will  probably — not — re- 
mendjer,  only  a  gleam  of  sunsliine  on  a  jieiity  moor,  bringing 
out  the  tartan  plaids  of  two  Highlatid  drovers,  and  relievcul 
against  tlie  dark  grey  of  a  range;  of  qtiite  featureless  and 
n.'imeless  distiMit  moutitains,  seeu  LiirouglL  a  soft  curtain  of 
rapidly  drifting  rain, 

Some  little  time  after  we  had  acepiired  lliis  unobtrusive 
treasure,  one  of  i:iy  fellow  slud.tius. — it  wus  in  my  uudi  r- 
graduate  days  at  Chi'i.-it  Ciuirch  -came  to  Iba-ne  Jiill  to 
see  what  tlie  picture  miglit  1k'  wliieli  had  ai'tordc'd  me  so 
great  ravishment.  H(^  liad  liimself,  as  afterwards  Kingslake 
cad  Cinv.oii.  luen  urged  far  bv  the    tiiirst   of   oriental  travel  ; 


96  THE  ART  OF  ENGLAND. 

the  chequer  of  plaid  and  bonnet  had  for  him  but  feeble  in- 
terest after  having  worn  turban  and  capote  ;  and  the  grey  of 
Scottish  hillside  still  less,  to  one  who  had  climbed  Olympus 
and  Abarim.  After  gazing  blankly  for  a  minute  or  two  at  the 
cheerless  district  through  which  lay  the  drovers'  journey,  he 
turned  to  me  and  said,  "But,  Ruskin,  what  is  the  use  of 
painting  such  very  bad  weather  ?  "  And  I  had  no  answer, 
except  that,  for  Copley  Fielding  and  for  me,  there  was  no 
such  thing  as  bad  weather,  but  only  different  kinds  of  pleas- 
ant weather — some  indeed  inferring  the  exercise  of  a  little 
courage  and  patience  ;  but  all,  in  every  hour  of  it,  exactly 
what  was  fittest  and  best,  whether  for  the  hills,  the  cattle, 
the  drovers — or  my  master  and  me. 

Be  the  case  as  it  might, — and  admitting  that  in  a  certain 
sense  the  weather  might  be  bad  in  the  eyes  of  a  Greek  or  a 
Saracen, — there  was  no  question  that  to  us  it  was  not  only 
pleasant,  but  picturesque  ;  and  that  we  set  ourselves  to  the 
painting  of  it,  with  as  sincere  desire  to  represent  the — to  our 
minds — beautiful  aspect  of  a  mountain  shower,  as  ever  Titian 
a  blue  sky,  or  Angelico  a  golden  sphere  of  Paradise.  Nay,  in 
some  sort,  with  a  more  perfect  delight  in  the  thing  itself,  and 
less  coloring  of  by  our  own  thoughts  or  inventions.  For  that 
matter,  neither  Fielding,  nor  Robson,  nor  David  Cox,  nor 
Peter  de  Wint,  nor  any  of  this  school,  ever  had  much  thought 
or  invention  to  disturb  them.  They  were,  themselves,  a  kind 
of  contemplative  cattle,  and  flock  of  the  field,  who  merely 
liked  being  out  of  doors,  and  brought  as  much  painted  fresh 
air  as  tbey  could,  back  into  ^he  house  with  them. 

Neither  must  you  think  that  this  painting  of  fresh  air  is  an 
entirely  easy  or  soon  managed  business.  You  may  paint  a 
modern  French  emotional  landscape  with  a  pail  of  whitewash 
and  a  pot  of  gas-tar  in  ten  minutes,  at  the  outside.  I  don't 
know  how  long  the  operator  himself  takes  to  it — of  course 
some  little  more  time  must  be  occupied  in  plastering  on  the 
oil-paint  so  that  it  will  stick,  and  not  run ;  but  the  skill  of  a 
good  plasterer  is  really  all  that  is  required, — the  I'ather  that 
in  the  modern  idea  of  solemn  symmetry  you  always  make  the 
bottom  of  your  picture,  as  much  as  you  can,  like  the  top. 


THE  HILLSIDE.  07 

Tou  put  seven  or  eiglit  streaks  of  the  plaster  for  your  sky,  to 
begin  with  ;  then  you  put  in  a  row  of  bushes  with  the  gas-tar, 
then  you  rub  the  ends  of  them  into  the  same  shapes  ujoside 
down — you  put  three  or  four  more  streaks  of  white,  to  inti- 
mate the  presence  of  a  pool  of  water — and  if  you  finish  off 
with  a  log  that  looks  something  like  a  dead  body,  your  pict- 
ure will  have  the  credit  of  being  a  digest  of  a  whole  novel  of 
Gaboriau,  and  lead  the  talk  of  the  season. 

Far  other  was  the  kind  of  labour  required  of  even  the  least 
disciple  of  the  old  English  water-colour  school.  In  the  first 
place,  the  skill  of  laying  a  perfectly  even  and  smooth  tint  with 
absolute  precision  of  complex  outline  was  attained  to  a  degree 
which  uo  amateur  draughtsman  can  have  the  least  conception 
of.  Water-colour,  under  the  ordinary  sketcher's  mismanage- 
ment, drops  and  dries  pretty  nearly  to  its  own  fancy, — slops 
over  every  outline,  clots  in  eveiy  shade,  seams  itself  with  un- 
desirable edges,  speckles  itself  with  inexplicable  grit,  and  is 
never  supposed  capable  of  repi'esenting  anything  it  is  meant 
for,  till  most  of  it  has  been  washed  out.  But  the  great  pri- 
mary masters  of  the  trade  could  la}',  with  unerring  precision 
of  tone  and  equality  of  depth,  the  absolute  tint  they  wanted 
without  a  flaw  or  a  retouch  ;  and  there  is  perhaps  no  greater 
marvel  of  artistic  jDractice  and  finely  accurate  intention  exist- 
ing, in  a  simple  kind,  greater  than  the  study  of  a  Yorkshire 
waterfall,  by  Girtin,  now  in  the  British  Museum,  in  which 
every  sparkle,  ripple,  and  current  is  left  in  frank  light  by  the 
steady  pencil  which  is  at  the  same  instant,  and  with  the  same 
touch,  drawing  the  forms  of  the  dark  congeries  of  channelled 
rocks,  while  around  them  it  disperses  the  glitter  of  their 
spray. 

Then  further,  on  svich  basis  of  well-laid  primary  tint,  the 
old  water-colour  men  were  wont  to  obtain  their  effects  of  at- 
mosphere by  the  most  delicate  washes  of  transparent  colour, 
reaching  subtleties  of  gradation  in  misty  light,  which  were 
wholly  unthought  of  before  their  time.  In  this  kind  the 
depth  of  far-distant  brightness,  freshness,  and  mystery  of 
morning  air  with  which  Copley  Fielding  used  to  invest  the 
ridges  of  the  South  Downs,  as  they  rose  out  of  the  blue  Sus' 


OS  THE  ART  OF  ENGLAND. 

sex  champaign,  remains,  and  I  believe  must  remain,  insupera- 
ble, while  his  sense  of  beauty  in  the  cloud-forms  associated 
with  higher  mountains,  enabled  him  to  invest  the  compara- 
tively modest  scenery  of  our  own  island, — out  of  which  he 
never  travelled, — with  a  charm  seldom  attained  by  the  most 
ambitious  painters  of  Alp  or  Apennine. 

I  vainly  tried  in  \vriting  the  last  volume  of  '  Modern  Paint- 
ers '  to  explain,  even  to  myself,  the  course  or  nature  of  the 
pui-e  love  of  mountains  which  in  boyhood  was  the  ruling  pas- 
sion of  my  life,  and  which  is  demonstrably  the  first  motive  of 
inspiration  with  Scott,  Wordsworth,  and  Byron.  The  more  I 
analyzed,  the  less  I  could  either  understand,  or  justify,  the 
mysterious  pleasure  we  all  of  us,  gi-eat  or  small,  had  in  the 
land's  being  up  and  down  instead  of  level ;  and  the  less  I  felt 
able  to  deny  the  claim  of  prosaic  and  ignobly-minded  persons 
to  be  allowed  to  like  it  level,  instead  of  up  and  down.  In  the 
end  I  found  there  was  nothing  for  it  but  simply  to  assure 
those  recusant  and  grovelling  persons  that  they  were  perfectly 
wrong,  and  that  nothing  could  be  expected,  either  in  art  or 
literature,  from  people  who  like  to  live  among  snipes  and 
widgeons. 

Assuming  it,  therefoi-e,  for  a  moral  axiom  that  the  love  of 
mountains  was  a  heavenly  gift,  and  the  beginning  of  wisdom, 
it  ma}'  be  imagined,  if  we  endured  for  their  sakes  any  number 
of  rainy  days  with  philosophy,  with  what  rapture  the  old 
painters  were  wont  to  hail  the  reappearance  of  their  idols, 
with  all  their  cataracts  refreshed,  and  all  their  copse  and  crags 
respangled,  flaming  in  the  forehead  of  the  morning  sky.  Very 
certainly  and  seriously  there  are  no  such  emotions  to  be  had 
out  of  the  hedged  field  or  ditched  fen  ;  and  I  have  often 
charitably  paused  in  my  instances  in  '  Fors  Clavigera '  that 
our  squires  should  live  from  year's  end  to  year's  end  on  their 
own  estates,  when  I  reflected  how  many  of  their  acres  lay  in 
Leicestershire  and  Lincolnshire,  or  even  on  duller  levels,  where 
there  was  neither  good  hunting  nor  duck-shooting. 

T  uui  onh'  able  to  show  you  two  drawings  in  illustration  of 
these  sentiments  of  the  mountain  school,  and  one  of  those  is 
only  a  cop}'  of  a  Robson,  but  one  quite  good  enough  to  repre- 


THE  HILL-SIDE.  90 

sent  his  manner  of  work  and  tone  of  feeling.  He  died  young, 
and  there  may  perhaps  be  some  Hkeness  to  the  gentle  depth 
of  sadness  in  Keats,  traceable  in  his  refusal  to  paint  an}'  of 
the  leaping  streams  or  bright  kindling  heaths  of  Scotland, 
while  he  dwells  with  a  monotony  of  affection  on  the  clear  re- 
pose of  the  northern  twilight,  and  on  the  gathering  of  the 
shadow  in  the  mountain  gorges,  tUl  all  their  forms  were  folded 
in  one  kingly  shroud  of  purple  death.  But  over  these  hours 
and  colours  of  the  scene  his  governance  was  all  but  complete  ; 
and  even  in  this  unimportant  and  imperfectly  rendered  ex- 
ample, the  warmth  of  the  departing  sunlight,  and  the  depth 
of  soft  air  in  the  recesses  of  the  glen,  are  given  with  harmony 
more  true  and  more  pathetic  than  you  will  find  in  any  recent 
work  of  even  the  most  accomplished  masters. 

But  of  the  loving  labour,  and  severel}''  disciplined  observa,- 
tion,  which  prepared  him  for  the  expression  of  this  feeling  for 
chiaroscuro,  you  can  only  judge  by  examining  at  leisure  his 
outlines  of  Scottish  scenery,  a  work  of  whose  existence  I  had 
no  knowledge,  until  the  kindness  of  Mrs.  Inge  advised  me  of 
it,  and  further,  procured  for  me  the  loan  of  the  copy  of  it  laid 
on  the  table  ;  which  you  will  find  has  marks  placed  in  it  at  the 
views  of  Byron's  Lachin-y-Gair,  of  Scott's  Ben  Venue,  and  ot 
all  Scotsmen's  Ben  Lomond, — plates  which  you  may  take  for 
leading  types  of  the  most  careful  delineation  ever  given  to 
mountain  scenery,  for  the  love  of  it,  pure  and  simple. 

The  last  subject  has  a  very  special  interest  to  me  ;  and — if 
you  knew  all  I  could  tell  you,  did  time  serve,  of  the  associa- 
tions  connected  with  it — would  be  seen  gratefully  by  you  also. 
In  the  text  descriptive  of  it,  (and  the  text  of  this  book  is  quit© 
exceptionally  sensible  and  useful,  for  a  work  of  the  sort),  Mi*. 
Robson  acknowledges  his  obligation  for  the  knowledge  of  this 
rarely  discovered  view  of  Ben  Lomond,  to  Sir  Thomas  Acland, 
the  father  of  our  own  Dr.  Henry  Acland,  the  strength  of  whose 
whole  life  hitherto  has  been  passed  in  the  eager  and  unselfish 
service  of  the  University  of  Oxford.  His  father  was,  of  all 
amateur  artists  I  ever  knew,  the  best  di-aughtsman  of  moun- 
tains, not  with  spasmodic  force,  or  lightly  indicated  feeling, 
but  with  fii'm,  exhaustive,  and  unerring  delineation  of  their 


100  THB  ART  OF  EJS  GLAND. 

crystalline  and  geologic  form.  From  him  the  faith  in  the 
beauty  and  truth  of  natural  science  in  connection  with  art  was 
leai'ned  happily  by  his  physician- son,  by  whom,  almost  un- 
aided, the  first  battles  were  fought — and  fought  hard — before 
any  of  you  eager  young  physicists  were  born,  in  the  then  de- 
spised causes  of  natural  science  and  industrial  art.  That  cause 
was  in  the  end  sure  of  victor^',  but  here  in  Oxford  its  triumph 
would  have  been  long  deferred,  had  it  not  been  for  the  energy 
and  steady  devotion  of  Dr.  Acland.  Without  him— little  as  you 
may  think  it — the  great  galleries  and  laboratories  of  this  build- 
ing, in  which  you  pursue  your  physical-science  studies  so  ad- 
vantageously, and  so  forgetfully  of  their  first  advocate,  would 
not  3'et  have  been  in  existence.  Nor,  after  their  erection,  (if 
indeed  in  this  there  be  any  cause  for  your  thanks),  would  an 
expositor  of  the  laws  of  landscape  beauty  have  had  the  priv- 
ilege of  addressing  you  under  their  roof. 

I  am  indebted  also  to  one  of  my  Oxford  friends,  Miss  Sy- 
monds,  for  the  privilege  of  showing  you,  with  entire  satisfac- 
tion, a  perfectly  good  and  characteristic  drawing  by  Copley 
Fielding,  of  Cader  Idris,  seen  down  the  vale  of  Dolgelly  ;  in 
which  he  has  expressed  with  his  utmost  skill  the  joy  of  his 
heart  in  the  aerial  mountain  light,  and  the  iridescent  wildness 
of  the  mountain  foreground  ;  nor  could  you  see  enforced  with 
any  sweeter  emphasis  the  truth  on  which  Mr.  Morris  dwelt  so 
earnestly  in  his  recent  address  to  you — that  the  excellence 
of  the  work  is,  cseteris  paribus,  in  proportion  to  the  joy  of  the 
workman. 

There  is  a  singular  character  in  the  colouring  of  Fielding, 
as  he  uses  it  to  express  the  richness  of  beautiful  vegetation  ; 
he  makes  the  sprays  of  it  look  partly  as  if  they  were  strewn 
with  jewels.  He  is  of  course  not  absolutely  right  in  this  ;  to 
some  extent  it  is  a  conventional  exaggeration — and  yet  it  has 
a  basis  of  truth  which  excuses,  if  it  does  not  justify,  this  ex- 
pression of  his  pleasure  ;  for  no  colour  can  possibly  represent 
vividly  enough  the  charm  of  radiance  which  you  can  see  by 
looking  closely  at  dew-sprinkled  leaves  and  flowers. 

You  must  ask  Professor  Clifton  to  explain  to  you  why  it  is 
that  a  drop  of  water,  while  it  subdues  the  hue  of  a  gi-een  leaf 


THE  HILJ^SITjE.  101 

or  blue  flower  into  a  soft  grey,  and  shoNvs  itself  therefore  on 
the  grass  or  the  dock-leaf  as  a  lustrous  dimness,  enhances  the 
^orce  of  all  warm  colours,  so  that  you  never  can  see  what  the 
colour  of  a  carnation  or  a  wild  rose  really  is  till  you  get 
the  dew  on  it.  The  effect  is,  of  course,  only  generalized  at  the 
distance  of  a  paintable  foreground  ;  but  it  is  always  in  realit}' 
jmrt  of  the  emotion  of  the  scene,  and  justifiably  sought  in  any 
possible  similitude  by  the  means  at  our  disposal. 

It  is  with  still  greater  interest  and  reverence  to  be  noted 
as  t  physical  truth  that  in  states  of  joyful  and  healthy  ex- 
citement the  eye  becomes  more  highly  sensitive  to  the  beauty 
of  colour,  and  especially  to  the  blue  and  red  rays,  while  in 
depression  and  disease  all  colour  becomes  dim  to  us,  and  the 
yellow  rays  prevail  over  the  rest,  even  to  the  extremity  of 
jaundice.  But  while  I  direct  your  attention  to  these  deeply 
interesting  conditions  of  sight,  common  to  the  young  and  old, 
I  must  warn  you  of  the  total  and  most  mischievous  fallacy  of 
the  statements  put  forward  a  few  years  ago  bj'  a  foreign  ocu- 
list, respecting  the  changes  of  sight  in  old  age.  I  neither 
know,  nor  care,  what  states  of  senile  disease  exist  when  the 
organ  has  been  misused  or  disused ;  but  in  all  cases  of  dis- 
ciplined and  healthy  sight,  the  sense  of  colour  and  form  is  ab- 
solutely one  and  the  same  from  childhood  to  death. 

When  I  was  a  boy  of  twelve  years  old,  I  saw  nature  with 
Turner's  eyes,  he  being  then  sixty  ;  and  I  should  never  have 
asked  permission  to  resume  the  guidance  of  your  schools, 
unless  now,  at  sixty-four,  I  saw  the  same  hues  in  heaven  and 
earth  as  when  I  walked  a  child  by  my  mother's  side. 

Neither  may  you  suppose  that  between  Tui*ner's  eyes,  and 
yours,  thei'e  is  any  difference  respecting  which  it  may  be  dis- 
puted whether  of  the  two  is  right.  The  sight  of  a  great 
painter  is  as  authoritative  as  the  lens  of  a  camera  lucida  ;  he 
perceives  the  form  which  a  photograph  will  ratify  ;  he  is  sen- 
sitive to  the  violet  or  to  the  golden  ray  to  the  last  precision 
and  gradation  of  the  chemist's  defining  light  and  intervaled 
Hne.  But  the  veracity,  as  the  joy,  of  this  sensation, — and  the 
one  involves  the  other, — are  dependent,  as  I  have  said,  first 
on  vigour  of  health,  and  secondly  on  the  steady  looking  for 


102  THE  ART  OF  ENGLAND. 

and  acceptance  of  the  ti-uth  of  nature  as  she  gives  it  you,  and 
not  as  you  like  to  have  it — to  inflate  your  own  pride,  or  sat- 
isfy your  own  passion.  If  pursued  in  that  insolence,  or  in  that 
concupiscence,  the  phenomena  of  all  the  universe  becomes 
first  gloomy,  and  then  spectral ;  the  sunset  becomes  demo- 
niac fire  to  you,  and  the  clouds  of  heaven  as  the  smoke  of 
Acheron. 

If  there  is  one  part  more  than  another  which  in  my  early 
writing  deservedly  obtained  audience  and  acceptance,  it  was 
that  in  which  I  endeavoui*ed  to  direct  the  thoughts  of  my 
readers  to  the  colours  of  the  sky,  and  to  the  forms  of  its 
clouds.  But  it  has  been  my  fate  to  live  and  work  in  direct 
antagonism  to  the  instincts,  and  yet  more  to  the  interests,  of 
the  age  ;  since  I  wrote  that  chapter  on  the  pure  traceries  of 
the  vault  of  morning,  the  fury  of  useless  traffic  has  shut  the 
sight,  whether  of  morning  or  evening,  from  more  than  the 
third  part  of  England  ;  and  the  foulness  of  sensual  fantasj'  has 
infected  the  bright  beneficence  of  the  life-giving  sky  with  the 
dull  horrors  of  disease,  and  the  feeble  falsehoods  of  insanity. 
In  the  book  professing  to  initiate  a  child  in  the  elements  of 
natural  science,  of  which  I  showed  you  the  average  character 
of  illustration  at  my  last  lecture,  there  is  one  chapter  espe- 
cially given  to  aerial  phenomena— wherein  the  cumulus  cloud 
is  asserted  to  occur  "  either  under  the  form  of  a  globe  or  a 
half-globe,"  and  in  such  shape  to  present  the  most  exciting 
field  for  the  action  of  imagination.  What  the  French  artistic 
imagination  is  supposed  to  produce,  under  the  influence  of 
this  excitement,  we  find  represented  by  a  wood-cut,  of  which 
Mr.  Macdonald  has  reproduced  for  you  the  most  sublime 
portion.  May  I,  for  a  minute  or  two,  delay,  and  prepare  you 
for,  its  enjoyment  by  reading  the  lines  in  which  Wordsworth 
describes  the  impression  made  on  a  cultivated  and  pure- 
hearted  spectator,  by  the  sudden  opening  of  the  sky  aftex 
storm  ? — 

"  A  single  step,  that  freed  me  from  the  skirts 
Of  the  blind  vapour,  opened  to  my  view 
Glory  beyond  all  glory  ever  seen 
By  waking  sense  or  by  the  dreaming  soul ! 


THE  HILL-SIDE,  103 

The  appearance,  instantaneously  disclosed, 
Was  of  a  mighty  city — boldly  say 
A  wilderness  of  building,  sinking  far 
And  self-withdrawn  into  a  boundless  depth, 
Far-sinking  into  splendour  — without  end  ! 
Fabric  it  seemed  of  diamond  and  of  gold. 
With  alabaster  domes,  and  silver  spires, 
And  blazing  terrace  upon  terrace,  high 
Uplifted  ;  here,  serene  pavilions  bright, 
In  avenues  disposed  ;  there,  towers  begirt 
With  battlements  that  on  their  restless  fronts 
Bore  stars — illumination  of  all  gems ! 
By  earthly  nature  had  the  effect  been  wrought 
Upon  the  dark  materials  of  the  storm 
Now  pacified  ;  on  them,  and  on  the  coves 
And  mountain-steeps  and  summits,  whefeunto 
The  vapours  had  receded,  taking  there 
Their  station  under  a  cerulean  sky." 

I  do  not  mean  wholly  to  ratify  this  Wordsworthian  state- 
ment of  Arcana  Ccelestia,  since,  as  far  as  I  know  clouds  my- 
self, they  look  always  like  clouds,  and  are  no  more  walled  like 
castles  than  backed  like  weasles.  And  farther,  observe  that 
no  great  poet  ever  tells  you  that  he  saw  something  finer  than 
anybody  ever  saw  before.  Great  poets  try  to  describe  what 
all  men  see,  and  to  express  what  all  men  feel ;  if  they  cannot 
describe  it,  they  let  it  alone  ;  and  what  they  say,  say  '  boldly  ' 
always,  without  advising  their  readers  of  that  fact. 

Nevertheless,  though  extremely  feeble  poetrj',  this  piece 
of  bold  Wordsworth  is  at  least  a  sincere  effort  to  describe 
what  was  in  truth  to  the  writer  a  most  rapturous  vision, — 
with  which  we  may  now  compare  to  our  edification  the  soi't  of 
object  which  the  same  sort  of  cloud  suggests  to  the  modem 
French  imagination. 

It  would  be  surely  superfluous  to  tell  you  that  this  repre- 
sentation of  cloud  is  as  false  as  it  is  monstrous  ;  but  the 
point  which  I  wish  principally  to  enforce  on  your  attention  is 
that  all  this  loathsome  and  lying  defacement  of  book  pages, 
which  looks  as  if  it  would  end  in  representing  humanity  only 
in  its  skeleton,  and  nature  only  in  her  ashes,  is  all  of  it 
founded  first  on  the  desire  to  make  the  volume  saleable  at 


i  04-  THE  ART  OF  ENGLAND, 

small  cost,  aud  attractive  to  the  greatest  number,  on  wbafc. 
ever  terms  of  attraction. 

The  significant  change  which  Mr.  Morris  made  in  the  title 
of  bis  recent  lecture,  from  Ai-t  and  Democracy,  to  Art  and 
Plalocracy,  strikes  at  the  root  of  the  whole  matter  ;  and  with 
wider  sweep  of  blow  than  he  permitted  himself  to  give  his 
words.  The  changes  which  he  so  deeply  deplored,  aud  so 
grandly  resented,  in  this  once  loveliest  city,  are  due  wholly  to 
the  deadly  fact  that  her  power  is  now  dependent  on  the  Plu- 
tocracy of  Knowledge,  instead  of  its  Divinity.  There  are  in- 
deed many  splendid  conditions  in  the  new  impulses  with 
which  we  are  agitated, — or  it  may  be  inspired  ;  but  against 
one  of  them,  I  must  warn  you,  in  all  affection  and  in  all  duty. 
So  far  as  you  come  to  Oxford  in  order  to  get  your  liviug 
out  of  her,  you  are  ruining  both  Oxford  and  yourselves. 
There  never  has  been,  there  never  can  be,  any  other  law  re- 
specting the  wisdom  that  is  from  above,  than  this  one  pre- 
cept,— "  Buy  the  Truth,  and  sell  it  not."  It  is  to  be  costly  to 
you — of  labour  and  patience  ;  and  you  are  never  to  sell  it, 
but  to  guard,  and  to  give. 

Much  of  the  enlargement,  though  none  of  the  defacement, 
of  old  Oxford  is  owing  to  the  real  life  and  the  honest  seeking 
of  extended  knowledge.  But  more  is  owing  to  the  supposed 
money  value  of  that  knowledge  ;  and  exactly  so  far  forth,  her 
enlargement  is  purely  injurious  to  the  University  and  to  her 
scholars. 

In  the  department  of  her  teaching,  therefore,  which  is  en- 
trusted to  my  care,  I  wish  it  at  once  to  be  known  that  I  will 
entertain  no  question  of  the  saleability  of  this  or  that  manner 
of  art ;  and  that  I  shall  steadily  discourage  the  attendance  of 
students  who  propose  to  make  their  skill  a  source  of  income. 
Not  that  the  true  labourer  is  unworthy  of  his  hire,  but  that, 
above  all,  in  the  beginning  and  first  choice  of  industry,  his 
heart  must  not  be  the  heart  of  an  hireling. 

You  may,  and  with  some  measure  of  truth,  ascribe  this  de- 
termination in  me  to  the  sense  of  my  own  weakness  and  want 
of  properly  so-caUed  artistic  gift.  That  is  indeed  so  ;  there 
are  hundreds  of  men  better  qualified  than  I  to  teach  practical 


THE  HILLSIDE.  105 

technique  :  and,  in  their  studios,  all  persons  desiring  to  be  art- 
ists should  place  themselves.  But  I  never  would  have  come 
to  Oxford,  either  before  or  now,  unless  in  the  conviction  that  I 
was  able  to  direct  her  students  precisely  in  that  degree  and 
method  of  application  to  art  which  was  most  consistent  with 
the  general  and  perpetual  functions  of  the  University. 

Now,  therefore,  to  prevent  much  future  disappointment  and 
loss  of  time  both  to  you  and  to  myself,  let  me  forewarn  you 
that  I  will  not  assist  out  of  the  schools,  nor  allow  in  them, 
modes  of  practice  taken  up  at  each  student's  fancy. 

In  the  classes,  the  modes  of  study  will  be  entirely  fixed  ;  and 
at  your  homes  I  cannot  help  you,  unless  you  work  in  accord- 
ance with  the  class  rules, — which  rules,  however,  if  you  do 
follow,  you  will  soon  be  able  to  judge  and  feel  for  yourselvesy 
whether  you  are  doing  right,  and  getting  on,  or  other\\i?;o 
This  I  tell  you  with  entire  confidence,  because  the  illustratwns 
and  examples  of  the  modes  of  practice  in  question,  which  I 
have  been  showing  you  in  the  course  of  these  lectures,  have  been 
fui'nished  to  me  by  young  people  like  yourselvef? ;  like  in  all 
things  except  only, — so  far  as  they  are  to  be  excepted  at  aU, 
— in  the  perfect  repose  of  mind,  which  has  been  founded  on 
a  simply  believed,  and  vmconditionally  obeyed,  religion. 

On  the  repose  of  mind,  I  say  ;  and  there  is  a  singular  physical 
truth  illustrative  of  that  spiritual  life  and  peace  which  I  must  yet 
detain  you  by  indicating  in  the  subject  of  our  study  to-day. 
You  see  how  this  foulness  of  false  imagination  represents,  in 
^very  line,  the  clouds  not  only  as  inonstro^i.s, — \>ni  tumultuous. 
Uow  all  lovely  clouds,  remember,  are  quiet  clouds, — not  merely 
^uiet  in  appearance,  because  of  their  greater  height  and  dis- 
tance, but  quiet  actually,  fixed  for  liours,  it  may  be,  in  the  same 
form  and  place.  I  have  seen  a  fair-weather  cloud  high  over  Con- 
iston  Old  Man, — not  on  the  hill,  observe,  but  a  vertical  mile 
above  it, — stand  motionless,— changeless, — for  twelve  hours 
together.  From  four  o'clock  in  the  afternoon  of  one  day  I 
watched  it  through  the  night  by  the  north  twilight,  till  the 
dawn  struck  it  v/ith  full  crimson,  at  four  of  the  following  July 
morning.  What  is  glorious  and  good  in  the  heavenly  cloud, 
you  can,  if  yon  will,,  bring  also  into  your  lives, — which  are  in- 


106  THE  ART  OF  ENGLAND. 

deed  like  it,  in  their  vanishing,  but  how  much  more  in  their 
not  vanishing,  till  the  morning  take  them  to  itself.  As  this 
ghastly  phantasy  of  death  is  to  the  mighty  clouds  of  which  it  is 
written,  '  The  chariots  of  God  are  twenty  thousand,  even  thou- 
sands of  angels,'  are  the  fates  to  which  your  passion  may  con- 
demn you, — or  your  resolution  raise.  You  may  drift  with  the 
phrenzy  of  the  whirlwind, — or  be  fastened  for  your  part  in 
the  pacified  eifulgence  of  the  sky.  Will  you  not  let  your  lives 
be  lifted  up,  in  fruitful  rain  for  the  earth,  in  scatheless  snow 
to  the  sunshine, — so  blessing  the  years  to  come,  when  the 
surest  knowledge  of  England  shall  be  of  the  will  of  her  heav- 
enly Father,  and  the  purest  art  of  England  be  the  inheritance 
of  her  simplest  children  ? 


APPEE"DIX. 


The  foregoing  l6ctures  were  written,  among  other  reasons, 
with  the  leading  object  of  giving  some  permanently  rational 
balance  between  the  rhapsodies  of  praise  and  blame  which 
idly  occupied  the  sheets  of  various  magazines  last  year  on  tho 
occasion  of  the  general  exhibition  of  Rossetti's  works  ;  and 
carrj-ing  forward  the  same  temperate  estimate  of  essential 
value  in  the  cases  of  other  artists — or  artistes— of  real,  though 
more  or  less  restricted,  powers,  whose  works  were  immedi- 
ately interesting  to  the  British  public,  I  have  given  this  bal- 
ance chiefly  in  the  form  of  qualified,  though  not  faint,  praise, 
which  is  the  real  function  of  just  criticism  ;  for  the  multitude 
can  alwaj's  see  the  faults  of  good  work,  but  never,  unaided, 
its  virtues  :  on  the  contrary,  it  is  equally  quick-sighted  to  the 
vulgar  mei'its  of  bad  work,  but  no  tuition  will  enable  it  to  con- 
demn the  vices  with  wliich  it  has  a  natural  sympathy  ;  and,  in 
general,  the  blame  of  them  is  wasted  on  its  deaf  ears. 

"When  the  course  was  completed,  I  found  that  my  audiences 
had  been  pleased  by  the  advisedly  courteous  tone  of  comment 
to  which  I  had  restricted  myself  ;  and  I  received  not  a  few 
congratulations  on  the  supposed  improvement  of  my  temper 
and  manners,  under  the  stress  of  age  and  experience.  The 
tenor  of  this  terminal  lecture  may  perhaps  modify  the  opinion 
of  my  friends  in  these  respects  ;  but  the  observations  it  con- 
tains are  entirely  necessary  in  order  to  complete  the  service- 
ableness,  such  as  it  may  be,  of  all  the  preceding  statements. 

In  the  first  place,  may  I  ask  the  reader  to  consider  with 
himself  why  British  painters,  great  or  small,  are  never  right 
altogether  ?  Why  their  work  is  always,  somehow,  flawed, — 
never  in  any  case,  or  even  in  any  single  picture,  thorough  ? 


108  APPENDIX. 

Is  it  not  a  strange  thing,  and  a  lamentable,  that  no  British  art- 
ist has  ever  lived,  of  whom  one  can  say  to  a  student,  "Imitate 
him — and  prosper  ;  "  while  yet  the  great  body  of  minor  artists 
are  continually  imitating  the  master  Avho  chances  to  be  in 
fashion  ;  and  any  popular  mistake  will  carry  a  large  majority 
of  the  Britannic  mind  into  laboriously  identical  blunder,  for 
two  or  three  artistic  generations  ? 

I  had  always  intended  to  press  this  question  home  on  my 
readers  in  my  concluding  lecture  ;  but  it  was  pressed  much 
more  painfully  home  on  myself  by  the  recent  exhibition  of 
Sir  Joshua  at  Burlington  House  and  the  Grosvenor.  There 
is  no  debate  that  Sir  Joshua  is  the  greatest  figure-painter 
whom  England  has  produced, — Gainsborough  being  sketchy 
and  monotonous  *  in  comparison,  and  the  rest  virtually  out  of 
court  But  the  gathering  of  any  man's  work  into  an  unin- 
tended mass,  enforces  his  failings  in  sickening  iteration,  while 
it  levels  his  merits  in  monotony  ; — and  after  shrinking,  here, 
from  affection  worthy  only  of  the  Bath  Parade,  and  mourning, 
there,  over  negligence  '  fit  for  a  fool  to  fall  by,'  I  left  the 
rooms,  really  caring  to  remember  nothing,  except  the  curl  of 
hair  over  St.  Cecilia's  left  ear,  the  lips  of  Mrs.  Abington,  and 
the  wink  of  Mrs.  Nesbitt's  white  cat. 

It  is  true  that  I  was  tired,  and  more  or  less  vexed  -rt^ith  my- 
self, as  well  as  with  Sir  Joshua  ;  but  no  bad  humour  of  mine 
alters  the  fact,  tliat  Sir  Joshua  was  always  affected, — often 
negligent, — sometimes  vulgar, — and  never  sublime  ;  and  that, 
in  this  collective  representation  of  English  Art  under  highest 
patronage  and  of  utmost  value,  it  was  seen,  broadly  speaking, 
that  neither  the  painter  knew  how  to  paint,  the  patron  to  pre- 
serve, nor  the  cleaner  to  restore. 

If  this  be  true  of  Sir  Joshua,  and  of  the  public  of  Lords 
and  Ladies  for  whom  he  woi'ked, — what  are  we  to  say  of  the 
nmltitude  of  entirely  uneducated  painters,  competing  for  the 
patronage  of  entirely  uneducated  people  ;  and  filling  our  an- 
nual exhibitions,  no  more  with  what  Carlyle  complains  of  as  the 
Correggiosities  of  Correggio,  but  with  what  perhaps  may  be 

*  "  How  rarious  the  fellow  is!  "  Gainsborough  himself,  jealous  of 
Sir  Joshua  at  the  '  private  view. ' 


APPENDIX.  109 

enough  described  and  summed  under  the  simply  reversed 
phrase — the  IncoiTeggiosities  of  IncoiTeggio. 

And  observe  that  the  gist  of  this  grievous  question  is  that 
our  EngHsh  errors  are  those  of  very  amiable  and  worthy  peo- 
ple, conscientious  after  a  sort,  -working  under  honourable  en- 
couragement, and  entirely  above  the  temptations  which  betray 
the  bulk  of  the  French  and  Italian  schools  into  sharing,  or 
consulting  the  taste  only  of  the  demi-monde. 

The  French  taste  in  this  respect  is  indeed  widely  and  rap- 
idly con-uptiug  our  own,  but  such  corruption  is  recognizable 
at  once  as  disease  :  it  does  not  in  the  least  affect  the  broad 
questions  concerning  all  English  artists  that  ever  were  or  are, 
why  Hunt  can  paint  a  flower,  but  not  a  cloud ;  Turner,  a 
cloud,  but  not  a  flower  ;  Bewick,  a  pig,  but  not  a  girl ;  and 
Miss  Greenaway  a  girl,  but  not  a  pig. 

As  I  so  often  had  to  say  in  my  lecture  on  the  inscrutability 
of  Clouds,  I  leave  the  question  with  you,  and  pass  on. 

But,  extending  the  inquiry  beyond  England,  to  the  causes 
of  failure  in  the  art  of  foreign  countries,  I  have  especially  to 
signalize  the  French  contempt  for  the  'Art  de  Province,'  and 
the  infectious  insanity  of  centralization,  throughout  Europe, 
which  collects  necessarily  all  the  vicious  elements  of  any  coun- 
tr\''s  life  into  one  niephitic  cancer  in  its  centre. 

All  great  art,  in  the  great  times  of  art,  is  provincial,  showing 
its  energy  in  the  capital,  but  educated,  and  chiefly  productive, 
in  its  own  country  town.  The  best  works  of  Correggio  are 
at  Parma,  but  he  lived  in  his  patronymic  village  ;  the  best 
works  of  Cagliariat,  Venice,  but  he  learned  to  paint  at  Ve- 
rona ;  the  best  works  of  Angelico  are  ai  Rome,  but  he  lived 
at  Fesole  :  the  best  works  of  Luini  at  Milan,  but  he  lived  at 
Luino.  And,  with  still  greater  necessity  of  moi'al  law,  the 
cities  which  exercise  forming  power  on  style,  are  themselves 
provincial.  There  is  no  Attic  style,  but  there  is  a  Doric  and 
Corinthian  one.  There  is  no  Roman  style,  but  there  is  an 
Umbrian,  Tuscan,  Lombard,  and  Venetian  one.  There  is  no 
Parisian  style,  but  there  is  a  Norman  and  Burgundian  one. 
There  is  no  London  or  Edinburgh  style,  but  there  is  a  Kent- 
ish and  Northumbrian  one. 


110  APPENDIX. 

Farther, — the  tendency  to  centralization,  which  has  been 
fatal  to  art  in  all  times,  is,  at  tlds  time,  pernicious  in  totally 
unprecedented  degree,  because  the  capitals  of  Europe  are  all 
of  monstrous  and  degi'aded  architecture.  An  artist  in  former 
ages  might  be  corrupted  by  the  manners,  but  he  was  exalted 
b}^  the  splendour,  of  the  capital ;  and  peiished  amidst  mag- 
nificence of  palaces  :  but  now — the  Boai'd  of  Works  is  capable 
of  uo  higher  skill  than  drainage,  and  the  British  artist  floats 
placidly  down  the  maximum  current  of  the  National  Cloaca, 
to  his  Dunciad  rest,  content,  virtually,  that  his  life  should  be 
spent  at  one  end  of  a  cigar,  and  his  fame  expire  at  the  other. 

In  literal  and  fatal  instance  of  fact — think  what  ruin  it  is 
for-  men  of  any  sensitive  faculty  to  live  in  such  a  city  as  Lon- 
don is  now  !  Take  the  highest  and  lowest  state  of  it :  you 
have,  typically,  Grosvenor  Square, — an  aggregation  of  bricks 
and  railings,  with  not  so  much  architectural  faculty  expressed 
in  the  whole  cumber  of  them  as  there  is  in  a  wasp's  nest  or  a 
worm-hole  ; — and  you  have  the  rows  of  houses  which  you 
look  down  into  on  the  south  side  of  the  South- Western  line, 
between  Vauxhall  and  Clapham  Junction.  Between  those  two 
ideals  the  London  artist  must  seek  his  own  ;  and  in  the  hu- 
manity, or  the  vermin,  of  them,  worship  the  aristocratic  and 
scientific  gods  of  living  Israel. 

In  the  chapter  called  '  The  Two  Boyhoods '  of  '  Modem 
Painters,'  I  traced,  a  quarter  of  a  century  ago,  the  difference 
between  existing  London  and  former  Venice,  in  their  effect, 
as  schools  of  art,  on  the  minds  of  Turner  and  Giorgione.  I 
would  reprint  the  passage  here :  but  it  needs  expansion  and 
comment,  which  I  hope  to  give,  with  other  elucidary  notes  on 
former  texts,  in  my  October  lectures.  But  since  that  com- 
parison was  written,  a  new  element  of  e\\\  has  developed  itself 
against  art,  which  I  had  not  then  so  much  as  seen  the  slightest 
beginnings  of.  Tlie  description  of  the  school  of  Giorgione 
ends  ('Modern  Painters,'  vol.  v.,  p.  291)  with  this  sentence, — 

"  Ethereal  strength  of  Alps,  dreamlike,  vanishing  in  high 
procession  beyond  the  Torcellan  shore  ;  blue  islands  of  Pa- 
duan  hills,  poised  in  the  golden  west.  Above,  free  winds  and 
fienj  clouds  ranging  at  their  \\ill ;  brightness  out  of  the  nortli. 


ArrEKDix.  Ill 

and  halm  from  the  south,  and  the  Stars  of  the  Evening  and 
Morning  clear  in  the  limitless  light  of  arched  heaven  and  cir- 
cling sea." 

Now  if  I  had  written  that  sentence  with  foreknowledge  of 
the  approach  of  those  malignant  aerial  phenomena  which,  be- 
ginning ten  years  afterwards,  were  to  induce  an  epoch  of  con- 
tinual diminution  in  the  depth  of  the  snows  of  the  Alps,  and 
a  parallel  change  in  the  relations  of  the  sun  and  sky  to  organic 
life,  I  could  not  have  set  the  words  down  with  more  concen- 
trated precision,  to  express  the  beautiful  and  healthy  states  of 
natural  cloud  and  light,  to  which  the  plague-cloud  and  plague- 
wind  of  the  succeeding  sei'a  were  to  be  opposed.  Of  the 
physical  character  of  these,  some  account  was  rendered  in  my 
lectures  at  the  London  Institution  ;  of  their  effect  on  the  ar- 
tistic power  of  our  time,  I  have  to  speak  now  ;  and  it  will  be 
enough  illustrated  by  merely  giving  an  accurate  account  of 
the  weather  yesterday  (20th  May,  1884). 

Most  people  would  have  called  it  a  fine  day  ;  it  was,  as  com- 
pared with  other  days  of  the  spring,  exceptionally  clear :  Hel- 
vellyn,  at  a  distance  of  fifteen  miles,  showing  his  grassy  sides 
as  if  one  could  reach  them  in  an  hour's  walk.  The  sunshine  was 
warm  and  full,  and  I  went  out  at  three  in  the  afternoon  to 
superintend  the  weeding  of  a  bed  of  wild  raspberries  on  the 
moor.  I  had  put  no  upper  coat  on — and  the  moment  I  got 
out  of  shelter  of  the  wood,  found  that  there  was  a  brisk  and 
extremely  cold  wind  blowing  steadily  from  the  southwest — 
i.  e.,  straight  over  Black  Coomb  from  the  sea^  Now,  it  is  per- 
fectly normal  to  have  keen  ead  wind  with  a  bright  sun  in 
March,  but  to  have  keen  south-icest  wind  with  a  bright  sun  on 
the  20th  of  May  is  entirely  abnormal,  and  destructive  to  the  , 
chief  beauty  and  character  of  the  best  month  in  the  year. 

I  have  only  called  the  wind  keen, — bitter,  would  have  been 
nearer  the  truth  ;  even  a  young  and  strong  man  could  not 
have  stood  inactive  in  it  with  safety  for  a  quarter  of  an  hour ; 
and  the  danger  of  meeting  it  full  after  getting  hot  in  any 
work  under  shelter  was  so  great  that  I  had  instantly  to  give 
up  all  idea  of  gardening,  and  went  up  to  the  higher  moor  to 
study  the  general  state  of  colour  and  light  in  the  hills  and  sky. 


112  APPENDIX. 

The  sun  was — the  reader  may  find  how  high  for  himself, 
three  o'clock  p.m.,  on  20th  May,  in  latitude  55°:  at  a  guess,  4G 
degrees  ;  and  the  entire  space  of  sky  under  him  to  the  horizon 
— and  far  above  him  towards  the  zenith — say  40  degrees  all 
round  him,  was  a  dull  pale  grey,  or  dirty  white, — very  full 
of  light,  but  totally  devoid  of  colour  or  sensible  grada- 
tion. Common  flake-white  deadened  with  a  little  lamp- 
black would  give  all  the  colour  there  was  in  it, —  a  mere 
tinge  of  yeUow  ochre  near  the  sun.  This  lifeless  stare  of 
the  sky  changed  gradually  towards  the  zenith  into  a  dim 
greyish  blue,  and  then  into  definite  blue — or  at  least  what 
most  people  would  call  blue,  opposite  the  sun  answering  the 
ordinary  purpose  of  blue  pretty  well,  though  really  only  a 
bluish  grey.  The  main  point  was  to  ascertain  as  nearly  as 
possible  the  depth  of  it,  as  compared  with  other  tints  and 
lights. 

Holding  my  arm  up  against  it  so  as  to  get  the  shirt  sleeve 
nearly  in  full  sunlight,  but  with  a  dark  side  of  about  a  quarter 
its  breadth,  I  found  the  sky  quite  vigorously  dark  against  the 
white  of  the  sleeve;  yet  vigorously  also  detached  in  light  be- 
yond its  dark  side.  Now  the  dark  side  of  the  shirt  sleeve  was 
pale  grey  compared  to  the  sunlighted  colour  of  my  coat-sleeve. 
And  that  again  was  luminous  compared  to  its  own  dark  side, 
and  that  dark  side  was  still  not  black.  Count  the  scale  thus 
obtained.  You  begin  at  the  bottom  with  a  tint  of  russet  not 
reaching  black  ;  you  relieve  this  distinctly  against  a  lighter  rus- 
set, you  relieve  that  strongly  against  a  pale  warm  grey,  you 
relieve  that  against  the  brightest  white  you  can  paint.  Then 
the  sky-blue  is  to  be  clearly  lighter  than  the  pale  warm  grey, 
and  yet  as  clearly  darker  than  the  white.    . 

Any  landscape  artist  will  tell  you  that  this  opposition  can- 
not be  had  in  painting  with  its  natural  force  ; — and  that  in  all 
pictorial  use  of  the  effect,  either  the  dark  side  must  be  exag- 
gerated in  depth,  or  the  relief  of  the  blue  from  it  sacrificed. 
But,  though  I  began  the  study  of  such  gi*adation  just  half  a 
century  ago,  carrying  my  "  cyanometer  "  as  I  called  it — (a 
sheet  of  paper  gradated  from  deepest  blue  to  white),  with  nio 
always  through  a  summer's  journey  on  the  Continent  in  1855, 


APPENDIX.  113 

I  never  till  yesterday  felt  the  full  difficulty  of  explaining  the 
enormous  power  of  contrast  which  the  real  light  possesses  in 
its  most  delicate  tints.  I  note  this  in  passing  for  future  in- 
quiry ;  at  present  I  am  concerned  only  with  the  main  fact 
that  the  darkest  part  of  the  sky-blue  opposite  the  sun  was  light- 
er, by  much,  than  pure  white  in  the  shade  in  open  air — (that 
is  to  say,  lighter  by  much  than  the  margin  of  the  page  of  this 
book  as  3'ou  read  it) — and  that  therefore  the  total  effect  of  the 
landscape  was  of  diffused  cold  light,  against  which  the  hills 
rose  clear,  but  monotonously  grey  or  dull  green — while  the 
lake,  being  over  the  whole  space  of  it  agitated  by  strong  wind, 
took  no  reflections  from  the  shores,  and  was  nothing  but  a  flat 
piece  of  the  same  grey  as  the  sliy,  traversed  by  irregular  black- 
ness from  more  violent  squalls.  The  clouds,  considerable  in 
number,  were  all  of  them  alike  shapeless,  colouiiess,  and  light- 
less,  like  dirty  bits  of  wool,  without  any  sort  of  arrangement 
or  order  of  action,  yet  not  quiet ; — touching  none  of  the  hills, 
yet  not  high  above  them  ;  and  whatever  character  they  had, 
enough  expressible  by  a  little  chance  rubbing  about  of  the 
brush  charged  with  cleanings  of  the  palette. 

Supposing  now  an  artist  in  the  best  possible  frame  of  mind 
for  work,  having  his  heart  set  on  getting  a  good  Coniston 
subject ;  and  any  quantity  of  skill,  patience,  and  whatsoever 
merit  you  choose  to  grant  him, — set,  this  day,  to  make  his 
study  ;  what  sort  of  study  can  he  get  ?  In  the  first  place,  he 
must  have  a  tent  of  some  sort — he  cannot  sit  in  the  wind — 
and  the  tent  will  be  always  unpegging  itself  and  flapping 
about  his  ears — (if  he  tries  to  sketch  quickly,  the  leaves  of  his 
sketch-book  will  all  blow  up  into  his  eyes  *)  ;— next,  he  can- 
not draw  a  leaf  in  the  foreground,  for  they  are  all  shaking 
"  like  aspens  ;  nor  the  branch  of  a  tree  in  the  middle  distance, 
for  they  are  all  bending  like  switches  ;  nor  a  cloud,  for  the 
clouds  have  no  outline  ;  nor  even  the  effect  of  waves  on  the 
lake  surface,  for  the  catspaws  and  swirls  of  wind  drive  the 
dark  spaces  over  it  like  feathers.  The  entire  form-value  of 
the  reflections,  the  colour  of  them  and  the  sentiment,  are  lost ; 
(were  it  sea  instead  of  lake,  there  would  be  no  waves,  to  call 

*  Xo  artist  who  knows  liis  business  ever  uses  a  block  book. 
8 


1 14  APPENDIX. 

■waves,  but  only  dodging  and  swinging  lumps  of  water — -dirty 
or  dull  blue  according  to  the  nearness  to  coast).  The  moun- 
tains have  no  contrast  of  colour,  nor  any  positive  beauty  of 
it :  in  the  distance  they  are  not  blue,  and  though  clear  for  the 
present,  are  sure  to  be  dim  in  an  hour  or  two,  and  will  prob- 
ably disappear  altogether  towards  evening  in  mere  grey 
smoke. 

What  sort  of  a  study  can  he  make  ?  "What  sort  of  a  pict- 
ure ?  He  has  got  his  bread  to  win,  and  must  make  his  canvas 
atti'active  to  the  public — somehow.  What  resource  has  he, 
but  to  try  by  how  few  splashes  he  can  produce  something  like 
hills  and  water,  and  put  in  the  vegetables  out  of  his  head  ? — 
according  to  the  last  French  fashion. 

Now,  consider  what  a  landscape  painter's  work  used  to  be,  in 
ordinary  spring  weather  of  old  times.  You  put  your  lunch  in 
your  pocket,  and  set  out,  any  fine  morning,  sure  that,  unless 
by  a  mischance  which  needn't  be  calculated  on,  the  forenoon, 
and  the  evening,  would  be  fine  too.  You  chose  two  subjects 
handily  near  each  other,  one  for  a.m.,  the  other  for  p.m.  ;  you  sate 
down  on  the  grass  where  you  liked,  worked  for  three  or  four 
hours  sereneh',  with  the  blue  shining  through  the  stems  of 
the  trees  like  painted  glass,  and  not  a  leaf  stiiTing  ;  the  grass- 
hoppers singing,  flies  sometimes  a  little  troublesome,  ants,  also, 
it  might  be.  Then  you  ate  your  lunch — lounged  a  little  after 
it — perhaps  fell  asleep  in  the  shade,  woke  in  a  dream  of  what- 
ever you  liked  best  to  dream  of, — set  to  work  on  the  afternoon 
sketch, — did  as  much  as  you  could  before  the  glow  of  the 
sunset  began  to  make  everything  beautiful  beyond  painting : 
you  meditated  awhile  over  that  impossible,  put  up  your  paints 
and  book,  and  walked  home,  proud  of  your  day's  work,  and 
peaceful  for  its  future,  to  suj)per. 

This  is  neither  fancy, — nor  exaggeration.  I  have  myself 
spent  literally  thousands  of  such  days  in  my  forty  yeai's  of 
happy  work  between  1830  and  1870. 

I  say  nothing  of  the  gain  of  time,  temper,  and  steadiness  of 
hand,  under  such  conditions,  as  opposed  to  existing  ones  ; 
but  we  must,  in  charity,  notice  as  one  inevitable  cause  of  the 
loose  and  flimsy  tree-drawing  of  the  moderns,  as  compared 


APPENDIX.  115 

with  tliat  of  Titian  or  Mantegna,  the  quite  infinite  diflerence 
between  the  look  of  blighted  foliage  quivering  in  confusion 
against  a  sky  of  the  colour  of  a  pail  of  whitewash  with  a  little 
starch  in  it ;  and  the  motionless  strength  of  olive  and  laurel 
leaf,  inlaid  like  the  wreaths  of  a  Florentine  mosaic  on  a  ground 
of  lapis-lazuli. 

I  have,  above,  supposed  the  effects  of  these  two  different 
kinds  of  weather  on  mountain  country,  and  the  reader  might 
think  the  difference  of  that  effect  would  be  greatest  in  such 
scenery.  But  it  is  in  reality  greater  still  in  lowlands  ;  and  the 
malignity  of  climate  most  felt  in  common  scenes.  If  the 
heath  of  a  hill  side  is  blighted, — (or  bui-nt  into  charcoal  by  an 
impi'oving  farmer,)  the  form  of  the  rock  remains,  and  its  im- 
pression of  power.  But  if  the  hedges  of  a  country  lane  are 
frizzled  by  the  plague  wind  into  black  tea, — what  have  you 
left  ?  If  the  reflections  in  a  lake  are  destroyed  by  wind,  its 
ripples  may  yet  be  graceful, — or  its  waves  sublime  ; — but  if 
you  take  the  reflections  out  of  a  ditch,  what  remains  for  you 
— but  ditch-water  ?  Or  again,  if  you  take  the  sunshine  from 
a  ravine  or  a  cliff ;  or  flood  with  rain  their  torrents  or  water- 
falls, the  sublimity  of  their  forms  may  be  increased,  and  the 
energy  of  their  passion  ;  but  take  the  sunshine  from  a  cottage 
porch,  and  drench  into  decay  its  hollyhock  garden,  and  you 
have  left  to  you — how  much  less,  how  much  worse  than 
nothing  ? 

Without  in  the  least  recognizing  the  sources  of  these  evils, 
the  entire  body  of  English  artists,  through  the  space  now  of 
some  fifteen  years,  (quite  enough  to  paralyze,  in  the  young 
ones,  what  in  their  nature  was  most  sensitive,)  have  been  thus 
afilicted  by  the  deterioration  of  climate  described  in  my  lec- 
tures given  this  last  spring  in  London.  But  the  deteriora- 
tions of  noble  subject  induced  by  the  progress  of  manufactures 
and  engineering  are,  though  also  without  their  knowledge, 
deadlier  still  to  them. 

It  is  continually  alleged  in  Parliament  b}'  the  railroad,  or 
building,  companies,  that  they  propose  to  render  beautiful 
places  more  accessible  or  habitable,  and  that  their  '  works ' 
will  be,  if  anything,  decorative  rather  than  destnictive  to  th*^ 


116  APPENDIX. 

better  civilized  scene.  But  in  all  these  cases,  admitting, 
(though  there  is  no  ground  to  admit)  that  such  arguments 
may  be  tenable,  I  observe  that  the  question  of  sentiment  pro- 
ceeding from  association  is  always  omitted.  And  in  the 
minds  even  of  the  least  educated  and  least  spiritual  artists, 
the  influence  of  association  is  strong  beyond  all  their  con- 
sciousness, or  even  belief. 

Let  me  take,  for  instance,  four  of  the  most  beautiful  and 
picturesque  subjects  once  existing  in  Europe, — Furness  Ab- 
bey, Conway  Castle,  the  Castle  of  Chillon,  and  the  Falls  of 
Schaffhausen.  A  railroad  station  has  been  set  up  within  a 
hundred  yards  of  the  Abbey, — an  iron  railroad  bridge  crosses 
the  Conway  in  front  of  its  castle ;  a  stone  one  crosses  the 
Rhine  at  the  top  of  its  catai-act,  and  the  great  Simplon  line 
passes  the  end  of  the  drawbridge  of  Chillon.  Since  these 
improvements  have  taken  place,  no  picture  of  any  of  these 
scenes  has  appeared  by  any  artist  of  eminence,  nor  can  any  in 
future  appear.  Their  porti'aiture  by  men  of  sense  or  feeling 
has  become  for  ever  impossible.  Discord  of  colour  may  be 
endured  in  a  picture — discord  of  sentiment,  never.  There  is 
no  occasion  in  such  matters  for  the  protest  of  criticism.  The 
artist  turns  unconsciously — but  necessarily — from  the  dis- 
graced noblesse  of  the  past,  to  the  consistent  baseness  of  the 
present ;  and  is  content  to  paint  whatever  he  is  in  the  habit 
of  seeing,  in  the  manner  he  thinks  best  calculated  to  recom- 
mend it  to  his  customers. 

And  the  perfection  of  the  mischief  is  that  the  very  few  who 
are  strong  enough  to  resist  the  money  temptation,  (on  the 
complexity  and  fatality  of  which  it  is  not  my  purpose  here  to 
enlarge,)  are  apt  to  become  satirists  and  reformers,  instead  of 
painters  ;  and  to  lose  tlie  indignant  passion  of  their  freedom 
no  less  vainly  than  if  they  had  sold  themselves  with  the  rest 
into  slavery.  Thus  Mr.  Herkomer,  whose  true  function  was 
to  show  us  the  dancing  of  Tyrolese  peasants  to  the  pipe  and 
zither,  spends  his  best  strength  in  painting  a  heap  of  promis« 
cuous  emigi'ants  in  the  agonies  of  starvation  :  and  Mx*.  Albei*t 
Goodwin,  whom  I  have  seen  drawing,  with  Turnerian  pre- 
cision, the  cliffs  of  Orvieto  and  groves  of  Vallombrosa,  must 


APPENDIX.  117 

needs  moralize  the  walls  of  the  Old  Water-colour  Exhibition 
■with  a  scattering  of  skeletons  out  of  the  ugliest  scenes  of  the 
'  Pilgrim's  Progress,'  and  a  ghastlj'  sunset,  illustrating  the 
progress — in  the  contrary  direction — of  the  manufacturing 
districts.  But  in  the  plurality  of  cases  the  metropolitan 
artist  passively  allows  himself  to  be  meti'opolized,  and  con- 
tents his  pride  with  the  display  of  his  skill  in  recommending 
things  ignoble.  One  of  quite  the  best,  and  most  admired, 
pieces  of  painting  in  the  same  Old  Water-colour  Exhibition 
was  Mr.  Marshall's  fog  effect  over  the  Westminster  cab-stand  ; 
while,  in  the  Royal  Institution,  Mr.  Severn  in  like  manner 
spent  all  his  power  of  rendering  sunset  light  in  the  glorifica- 
tion of  the  Westminster  clock  tower.  And  although  some 
faint  yearnings  for  the  rural  or  mai'ine  are  still  unextinguished 
in  the  breasts  of  the  elder  academicians,  or  condescendingly 
tolerated  in  their  sitters  by  the  3'ounger  ones, — though  Mr. 
Leslie  still  disports  himself  occasionally  in  a  punt  at  Henley, 
and  Mr.  Hook  takes  his  summer  lodgings,  as  usual,  on  the 
coast,  and  Mr.  Collier  admits  the  suggestion  of  the  squire's 
young  ladies,  that  they  may  gracefully  be  painted  in  a  storm 
of  primroses, — the  shade  of  the  Metropolis  never  for  an  in- 
stant relaxes  its  grasp  on  their  imagination  ;  Mr.  Leslie  cannot 
paint  the  barmaid  at  the  Angler's  Rest,  but  in  a-pair  of  high- 
heeled  shoes  ;  Mr.  Hook  never  lifts  a  wave  which  would  be 
formidable  to  a  trim-built  wherry  ;  and  although  Mr.  Fildes 
brought  some  agreeable  arrangements  of  vegetables  from 
Venice  ;  and,  in  imitation  of  old  William  Hunt,  here  and 
there  some  primroses  in  tumblers  carried  out  the  sentiment 
of  Mr.  Collier's  on  the  floor, — not  all  the  influence  of  Mr. 
Matthew  Arnold  and  the  Wordsworth  Society  together  ob- 
tained, throughout  the  whole  concourse  of  the  Royal  or  ple- 
beian salons  of  the  town,  the  painting  of  so  much  as  one  prim- 
rose nested  in  its  rock,  or  one  branch  of  wind-tossed  eglantine. 
As  I  write,  a  letter  from  Miss  Alexander  is  put  into  my 
hands,  of  which,  singular^,  the  closing  passage  alludes  to  the 
picture  of  Giorgione's,  which  I  had  proposed,  in  terminating 
this  lecture,  to  give,  as  an  instance  of  the  undisturbed  art  of 
a  faultless  master.     It  is  dated  "Bassano  Veneto,  May  27th," 


118  APPENDIX. 

and  a  few  sentences  of  the  preceding  context  will  better  pre* 
sent  the  words  I  wish  to  quote. 

"I  meant  to  have  told  you  about  the  delightful  old  lady 
whose  portrait  I  am  taking.  Edwige  and  I  set  out  early  in 
the  n:ion)ing,  and  have  a  delightful  walk  up  to  the  city,  and 
through  the  clean  little  streets  with  their  low  Gothic  arcades 
and  Httle  carved  balconies,  full  of  flowers  ;  meeting  nobody 
but  contadini,  mostly  women,  who,  if  we  look  at  them,  bow, 
and  smile,  and  say  '  Serva  sua.'  The  old  lady  told  us  she  was 
always  ready  to  begin  her  sitting  by  six  o'clock,  having  then 
finished  morning  prayers  and  breakfast :  pretty  well  for 
eighty-five,  I  think  :  (she  says  that  is  her  age.)  I  had  forgot- 
ten until  this  minute  I  had  promised  to  teU  you  about  our 
visit  to  Castelfranco.  We  had  a  beautiful  day,  and  had  the 
good  fortune  to  find  a  fair  going  on,  and  the  piazza  full  of  con- 
tadini, with  fruit,  chickens,  etc.,  and  many  pretty  things  in 
wood  and  basket  work.  Always  a  pretty  sight ;  but  it  troubled 
me  to  see  so  many  beggars,  who  looked  like  respectable  old 
people.  I  asked  Loredana  about  it,  and  she  said  they  xoere 
contadini,  and  that  the  poverty  among  them  was  so  great,  that 
although  a  man  could  live,  poorly,  by  his  work,  he  could 
never  lay  by  anything  for  old  age,  and  when  they  are  past 
work  they  have  to  beg.  I  cannot  feel  as  if  that  were  right,  in 
such  a  rich  and  beautiful  country,  and  it  is  certainly  not  the 
case  on  the  estate  of  Marina  and  Silvia  ;  but  I  am  afraid,  from 
what  I  hear,  that  our  friends  are  rather  exceptional  people. 
Count  Alessandro,  Marina's  husband,  always  took  an  almost 
paternal  care  of  his  contadini,  but  with  regard  to  other  con- 
tadini in  these  parts,  I  have  heard  some  heartbreaking  stories, 
Avhich  I  will  not  distress  you  by  repeating.  Giorgione's  Ma- 
donna, whenever  I  see  it,  always  appears  to  me  more  beautiful 
than  the  last  time,  and  does  not  look  like  the  work  of  a  mortal 
hand.  It  reminds  me  of  Avhat  a  poor  woman  said  to  me  once 
in  Florence,  '  What  a  pity  that  people  are  not  as  large  now  as 
they  used  to  be  ! '  and  when  I  asked  her  what  made  her  sup- 
pose that  they  were  larger  in  old  times,  she  said,  looking  sur- 
prised, '  Surely  you  cannot  think  that  the  people  who  built  the 
Duomo  were  no  larger  than  we  are  ? ' " 


APPENDIX.  119 

Anima  Toscana  gentilHssima, — truly  we  cannot  think  it,  but 
larger  of  heart  than  you,  no  ; — of  thought,  yes. 

It  has  been  held,  I  believe,  an  original  and  valuable  dis- 
coveiy  of  Mr.  Taiue's  that  the  art  of  a  people  is  the  natural 
product  of  its  soil  and  surroundings. 

Allowing  the  art  of  Giorgione  to  be  the  wild  fruitage  of 
Castelfranco,  and  that  of  Brunelleschi  no  more  than  the  ex- 
halation of  the  marsh  of  Amo  ;  and  perceiving,  as  I  do,  the 
existing  art  of  England  to  be  the  mere  effluence  of  Grosvenor 
Square  and  Clapham  Junction, — I  yet  trust  to  induce  in  my 
readers,  during  hours  of  future  council,  some  doubt  whether 
Grosvenor  Square  and  Clapham  Junction  be  indeed  the  natu- 
ral and  divinely  appointed  produce  of  the  Yalley  of  the 
Thames. 

Bbantwood, 

WJiii-Tuetday,  1884 


IIsTDEX. 


Achilles'  shield,  27.     See  Homer,  27. 

ACLAND,  Dr   Henry,  his  work  at  Oxford,  99. 

Sir  Thomas,  his  art  powers  ;  and  Robson,  99. 

Admiration  defined.  24. 

^GiNA,  marbles  of,  their  enjoyment,  44-45. 

.^SCHYLUS,  Dante's  use  of,  29. 

Alexander,  Miss  (•  Francesca '),  her  art-gift.  18-19;  to  what  it  appeals, 
105;  letter  to  Author  from,  quoted,  83,  93  seq.;  her  life,  17; 
works  of:  '  Ida,'  18,  49,  66;  '  Roadside  Songs  of  Tuscany,'  drawings 
from;  plans  for  their  use,  52  :  twelve  given  to  Oxford,  81 ;  portrait 
of  Beatrice  degli  Ontani,  49-50  ;  portrait  of  St.  Christopher,  51-52  ; 
preface  to,  quoted,  49.  64. 

Allingham,  Mrs.,  her  art-gift,  64;  children  by,  63;  'Tea-party,' 64; 
'  Toyshop,'  ib. 

Alma  Tade.ma.     See  Tadema,  38. 

America,  author's  prejudice  again.st,  17;  engraving  in,  77;  govern- 
ment survey  of  U.  S. ,  54  •  South,  illustrations  of,  75. 

Angelico,  children  by,  62  :  best  works  of,  at  Rome,  89,  109. 

Animals,  fables  about,  57-58. 

"Animus"  defined,  36. 

'Arabian  Nights,'  the,  25. 

Aristophanes,  use  of  myths  by,  27. 

Arnold,  Mr.  Matthew,  117. 

Art  :  ancient,  its  methods  inadequate,  27-28  ;  centralization  fatal  to, 
110;  for  children  to  be  graceful  and  serious,  57-58;  children  and 
legendary  art,  53;  Christianity  and,  13,  19;  creative  and  realistic,  35; 
criticism  of,  107;  decline  of.  its  period,  92;  delight  of  artists  in 
their  work,  90 ;  didactic,  English  dislike  of,  34 ;  English,  its  recent 
development,  6;  European,  its  rise,  39;  and  fall.  39;  execution, 
mystery  of  idea  no  ground  for  bad,  30 ;  for  both  noble  conception 
and  good  work  are  needed,  32;  finish  in,  21,  44:  great,  is  delicate, 
68;  great,  is  praise,  35;  is  provincial,  110;  imitation  and  suggestion 
in,  31 ;  legendary,  and  children,  53 ;  ma.sterpiece  of,  ground  of  de- 
light in  a,  72  ;  materials  provided  by  nature,  and  the  needs  of, 
72;  multiplication  of,  its  methods,  71;  national,  to  be  studied  in 
its  rise,  38:  patronage,  108;  the  product  of  a  nation's  surroundings, 
119  ;  public  appreciation  of,  1U8  ;  realistic,  35  ;  and  see  Realism; 
romantic,  90  s^q.:  salability  of,  112;  schools  of,  head  and  body, 
43  ;  are  provincial,  not  metropolitan,  109;  sight,  the  unaided,  and, 
68;  study  of,  38;  surroundings  of,  the,  106;  teaching  iu  Oxford, 
tee  Author,  6. 


122  INDEX. 

Arthur,  King,  •.)!. 

Artist,  no  English,  altogether  right,  107 ;  life  of,  in  great  cities,  110 ; 
effect  of  modern  weather  on,  115. 

Athena,  her  presence  to  be  imagined,  56. 

Athleticism,  useful  and  useless,  38,  51. 

Author,  the.  1.  Pertional. — His  education,  books  '  Evenings  at  Home,' 
60;  fairy  stories,  54;  taught  by  Copley  Fielding,  95;  his  feelings, 
not  talked  of  by  him,  10 ;  his  friends,  young  artists  among.  14  ; 
"laudator  temporis  acti,"'  87;  his  love  of  colour,  10,  landscape, 
88,  mountains,  98  (e.g.  Ben  Lomond,  99),  music,  10.  sunshine, 
ib. ;  his  manners  as  a  critic,  108  ;  painting,  daj's  spent  in,  1830-49, 
113  ;  his  prejudice  against  Americans,  17;  his  sight,  the  same  in  age 
and  youth,  iOl ;  Swiss  inns,  liked  better  than  Genoese  palaces  by, 
73  ;  his  religion,  11  ;  at  Brantwood,  May  20,  1884  (weather  de- 
scribed), 111  ;  at  Royal  Academy,  etc.,  1883,  36,  109;  and  at  Gros- 
venor  Gallery,  110;  in  Venice  (1876)  teaches  young  lady  to  draw, 
16;  (1880)  copies  Carpaccio  s  St.  Ursula,  43.  See  Coniston,  Field- 
ing, Leighton,  and  Marochetti,  45,  100,  30. 

2.  Teaching  of. — On  art,  he  teaches  what  is,  not  what  he  thinks, 
beautiful,  10  ;  on  landscape,  his  early  works,  6  ;  later  lectures  on, 
unpublished,  89  ;  likes  minute  work,  22;  said  to  teach  people  to 
see,  10;  study  of  head  and  body,  43,  52;  on  clouds  and  sky,  his 
early  work,  102  (see  "  Clouds  ') ;  Oxford  work,  resumes  the  chair, 
5;  plans  for,  7,  15,  33,  89,  104;  pupils,  87;  Tintoret  given  to, 
87 ;  Turners  given  to,  70 ;  Political  Economy,  paradoxes  of  liis, 
71. 

3.  His  Writings. — (a)  General  Character: — courteous  tone  of  his 
comments,  108;  cannot  express  all  he  sees,  10,  11  ;  impulse  of  his 
best,  107;  romantic  love  of  his  subject,  ib.;  serious  parts  of,  15; 
sermons,  his  art  lectures  not  to  be,  ib. 

[b)  Particular  works  referred  to:  — 
'Aratra  Pentelici,'  on  portraiture  and  Greek  art,  43. 

'Ariadne  Florentina,'  on  Florentine  engraving,  66;  on  methods  of 
wood-cutting,  76. 

'Art  of  England,'  notes  to,  to  be  avoided,  22  ;  object  of,  108  ;  plan 
of,  88  ;^  its  style,  108. 

'Fors  Clavigera,'  No.  92;  on  Scott's  scenery,  94;  passim,  squires 
to  live  on  their  lands,  98. 

•Laws  of  Fesole,'  general  teaching  of,  42;  great  art  is  praise,  35  ; 
tests  of  good  colour,  78. 

'Modern  Painters,'  its  aim.  91  ;  on  the  Dutch  school,  23  ;  Vol.  II. 
on  admiration.  25 ;  III.  on  Peter  drowning,  22 ;  V.  on  moun- 
tains, 102  ;  on  the  sky,  102  ;  on  the  '  Two  Boyhoods,'  110  seq. 

'Our  Fathers  have  told  us '  ('  Bible  of  Amiens,'  p.  14),  74. 

'  Queen  of  the  Air,'  on  myths,  27. 

'Storm  Cloud  of  Nineteenth  Century,'  111  et  seq. 

Barrett  and  the  Old  Water  Colour  Society,  90. 
Beatrice  degli  Ontani.     See  Alexander,  50. 
Beauty,  and  goodness,  49  ;  dependent  on  law,  49-50. 
Belief.     See  Faith,  Fancy,  55. 
BenedictinB  MS.,  Monte  Cassino.  38. 
Berlin,  Holbein'?  'George  Guysen,'  44, 


INDEX. 


123 


Genesis  i.  10 

.    page    49 

Psalm  xxiii.  2 
Psalm  Ixviii.  17    . 
Proverbs  xxiii.    23 

"  fi9 
"  106 
"    1U4 

Isaiah   xii.  8 

"      60 

Jeremiah  xxxi.  15 
Luke  i.  52 
John  xiv.  27 
John  xxi.  7 
Acts  xviii.  17 

"  12 
"  25 
"  20 
"  22 
"      69 

Eomans  viii.  37     . 
Revelation  xxi.  4  . 

"      11 

"      12 

Bertha,  Queen,  the  spinner,  51. 

Bewick,  draws  children  in  mischief  only,  63  ;  magnifying  glass  needed 

for  his  vignettes,  10  ;  can  draw  a  pig,  but  not  a  girl,  109  ;  plumage 

in  his  woodcuts,  76. 
Bible,  the,  and  Roman  Catholics,  51. 
Bible,  quoted: — 

'  And  God  saw  that  it  was  good ' 

'  He  maketh  me  to  lie  down  in  green  pas- 
tures'  

'  The  chariots  of  God  are  twenty  thousand ' 

'Buy  the  truth  and  sell  it  not' 

'  The  weaned  child  shall  put  his  hand  on 
the  cockatrice'  den'  .... 

'  Rachel  weeping  for  her  children  because 
they  were  jiot '  

'  He  hath  put  down  the  mighty ' 

'  My  peace  I  leave  with  you ' 

'  Peter  girt  his  tisher's  coat  unto  him  ' . 

'Gallic  cared  for  none  of  those  thin.cs' 

'More  than  conquerors  through  him  that 
loved  them ' 

'  No  death,  neither  sorrow,  nor  cr}"ing ' 

BiRKETT  Foster.     See  Foster,  64. 

Blake's  'Job,'  59. 

Books:  on  art,  rarity  of  good,  20  ;  cheap,  their  result,  104  ;  choice  of, 
by  public  libraries,  17  ;  French,  on  science  for  a  child,  75-76,  102  ; 
illustrations  in  modern,  58  seq.^  65. 

Botticelli,  Sandro,  classic  and  Gothic  art  united  in,  39  ;  frescoes  on 
education,  42-43  ;  Favonian  breeze,  24. 

Brantwood,  weather  at  (May  20,  1884j,  111  seq. 

Brett,  John,  sunshine  in  his  pictures,  9. 

British  Museum,  Elgin  marbles,  but  no  Gothic  marbles  in  the,  36  ; 
Girtin's  and  Cousin's  drawings,  94. 

Bull,  John,  the  farmer,  84  ;  '  defends  his  pudding,'  86. 

Burgmaier's  woodcuts  of  heraldry,  76. 

BuRNE-JoNES,  E.,  chiaroscuro  of,  32;  colour  of,  3P>  ;  educated  at  Ox- 
ford, 28  ;  friend  of  W.  Morris.  29  ;  of  Rossetti,  25  ;  a  hero-worship- 
per, 35 ;  knowledge  of  mythology,  29  ;  outline  perfect,  32  ;  per- 
sonification, his  gift,  25  ;  photographs  from  his  pictures,  34-35  ; 
pictures  of :  '  Danae '  (Oxford  schools),  32  ;  '  Days  of  Creation,' 
25,  30;  'Miss  Gladstone'  (portrait  of),  33;  'Medea'  (Oxford 
schools),  33  ;  '  Psyche  '  (Oxford  galleries),  32  ,  '  Wheel  of  For- 
tune,' 30. 

Burns,  on  children,  'toddlin'  wee  things,'  63  ;  romance  in,  7. 

Butler,  Mrs.  (Elizabeth  Thompson),  86. 

Byron,  and  landsf^ape  art,  94  ;  morbid  ('Childe  Harold'),  89  ;  moun- 
tains, his  love  of,  98 ;  romantic,  7  ;  quoted,  "  You  have  the  Pyrrhic 
dance  as  ye* ''  ('Don  Juan,'  iii.  86.  10),  47. 

Cagliari,  best  works  of,  at  Venice,  109. 
Caldecott,  M.  Chesneau  on,  65. 
Camilla,  47. 

Campbell,  Lord  G..  'Log  letters  from  the  "  Challenger,"'  61. 
Caricature,  79.     >S^c  'Punch.' 

Carlyle,  T.,  on  the  British  Lion,  85;  on  Correggio's  correggiositiea 
109;   '  Sartor  Resartus, '  40. 


1 24  INDEX. 

Carpaccio,  offensive  to  practical  Englishmen,  34  ;  S.  Ursula,  43. 

Catholics,  old,  view  of  tlie  Bible,  8. 

Centralization,  fatal  to  art,  109. 

'Century  Magazine,'  on  the  "  demoniac  snnset,"  75. 

Certificates  of  merit  at  Oxford,  author  s  plan  for  art,  19. 

Character  and  faces,  81-82. 

'  Charivari,'  the,  79. 

Charles  II.  destroys  English  morality,  91 ;  coins  of,  vulgar,  ih. 

Cheapness,  no  such  thing  as,  71. 

Chesneau,  M.  Ernest,  his  style  and  value,  65  ;  quoted  on  English  art, 

66. 
Chiaroscuro,  in  engraving,  78. 
Children,  in  art  and  literature,  61-62 ;  no,  in  Greek  art,  or  Gothic  till 

1200,  61  ;  art  for,  to  be  graceful  and  serious,  57-58  ;  and  legendary 

art,  53  ;  imagination  and  invention  to  be  stimulated,  54-55  ;  and 

fairy  stories, —are  they  to  be  told  true  stories  only  ?  54  ;  '  Punch  s,' 

79  ;  toys  for,  54-55. 
Chillon,  the  railroad  near,  116. 
Chivalry,  rise  of,  48. 

Christian  art  and  classicism,  29  ;  and  the  peace  of  God,  52. 
Christianity,  imparts  feeling  for  womanhood  and   children,  6?  ;    its 

doctrine  of  human  happiness  and  pain,  13. 
Christmas  books,  modern,  6U-61. 
Cimabue's  'Borgo,'  95. 
Cities,  monstrous  architecture  of  modern.  110  ;  consequent  decline  of 

art  in  them,  ib.  ;  hugeness  of,  88;  their  misery,  64. 
Classic,  means  anti-Gothic,  36  ;  and  Gothic  art,  28  ;  their  continuity, 

36-37  ;  union  of,  in  N.  Pisano's  pulpit,  39  ;  no  portraiture  in  classic  ' 

art,  43. 
Claude's  sunshine  colourless,  10. 
Clifton,  Prof.,  of  Oxford,  100. 
Clouds,  always  look   like  clouds  only,   102;    and   Greek  art,  69;  all 

lovely,  are  quiet  and  motionless,  106  ;  in  modern  weather,  113. 
Cockatrice,  fairy  story  about  a,  60. 
Coins,  of  Henry  VIII.  and  Charles  II.,  91. 
Collier,  Mr.,  primro.ses  by,  117. 
Colour,  Greek  art   and,  32  ;  in  early  landscape,  94  ;   in  portraiture, 

33  ;  maxim  as  to,  "all  white  precious,  all  black  conspicuous,"  78; 

our  sensitiveness  to,  and  delight  in,  varies  with  our  moods,  101, 

our  sight  for,  unchanging  in  age,  tb.;  printing,  53  ;  vivid  radianc 

cannot  be  given  by,  100. 
Commerce,  John  Bull  the  shopkeeper,  84. 
Competition  in  education,  20. 
Completeness  of  work  in  art,  its  difficulty,  33. 
CoNisTON  'Old  Man,'  clouds  over,  motionless,  105  ;  school,  music  foi, 

86. 
CoNSTANTiNE,  crowned  in  England,  85. 
Conway,  railroad  over  the,  116. 
Copley  Fielding.     See  Fielding,  100. 
'  CoRNHiLL  Magazine,'  April  1883,  54. 
Correctness  in  drawing,  30. 
CoRREGGio,  color-blending  of,  46 ;  correggiosities  of,  109  ;  best  worlcs 

of,  at  Parma,  109  ;  cannot  be  wood-engraved,  78. 


INDEX.  125 

C0STU>rE.     See  Dress. 

Cousins'  water-colours,  94. 

Cox,  David,  his  inventive  power  small,  96. 

Crabs,  stories  of,  61. 

Crane,  Walter,  M.  Ernest  Chesneau  on,  65. 

Criticism,  the  function  of  true,  is  qualified  praise,  107. 

Crystal  PalacEi  examples  of  Gothic  architecture  in,  38. 

Curzon's  travels  in  the  East,  95. 

CuYP's  sunshine  colourless,  10. 

Dante,  use  of  ^^schylus  by,  in  the  '  Inferno,'  29  ;  quoted  ('  Purgator/ 

xiv.  93),  56. 
Darling,  Grace,  51. 

Davis',  W.  B.,  'Highland  Moor,"  (R.  A.  1882,)  9. 
De  Wint,  90  ;  small  inventive  power,  96. 
Delicacy  of  great  art,  68. 
Design  in  creation,  a  proof  of,  72. 
Dew  on  flowers,  effect  on  their  colour,  100. 
Dickens  on  children,  6;i  -,   *  David  Copperfield,'  63  ;  '  Hard  Times,'  54  ; 

'Mrs.  Lirriper  s  Lodgings,   84  ;  '  Old  Curiosity  Shop,'  63. 
D' Israeli,  '  Punch's '  treatment  of,  80. 
Doll,  author's  cousin  and  her  armless,  55. 
Domestic  spirit  of  nineteenth  century,  20. 
DoNATELLo's  children,  14. 
Dramatic  school  in  art,  its  truth,  26. 
Drapery  of  Reynolds  and  Gainsborough,  40. 
Dress,   national   ^in  Norway),   and   the   fashion,   17 ;  painting  of,  in 

Gothic  art,  39. 
Du  Maurier,  does  not  caricature,  79  ;  keen  observation  of,  ih.;  his 

power,    78-79  ;   woodcuts  of,    their   method,    77-78  ;  pictures    of  : 

'Alderman   Sir   Robert,'  78;  'London  Mechanic,' the,  80  ;  '  Mr.s^ 

Ponsonby  de  Tomkyns,'  77;   'Lady  Midas,' ii.y   '  Herr  Professor,' 

84. 
Durer's  Apocalypse,  59. 
Dutch  school,  the,  '  Modern  Painters '  on,  22 ;  picture  of  in  National 

Gallery,  described,  91  seq. 

Education,  choice  of  books,  17;  is  everyone  to  learn  to  read?  17; 

not  a  means  of  livelihood,  104. 
Elephant,  absurd  story  of  an,  60. 
Elgin  marbles,  36. 
England,  artists  of,  never  altogether  right,  108  ;  engraving  in,  and  its 

decline.    66  ;  former   greatness  of,   85 ;  her  hope,    in  her  youth, 

86  ;  John  Bull   the   farmer,    no  longer  typical,  84  ;  '  defends  his 

pudding.'  86;  landscape-art,   9;  the   youth  of  their   beauty   and 

energy,  87. 
Engraving,  chiaroscuro  in.  78  ;  decline  of  modern,  66  ;  English  and 

Florentine,  66  ;  line,  73  ;  modern  methods  of,  78-79  ;  wood  and 

steel  angraving,  comparative  difficulty  of,  74. 
Etching,  labour  of,  74. 
Etruscan  people,  cliaracter  and  life  of,  49. 
Europe,  the  capitals  of,  their  degraded  architecture.  110. 
Exhibitions,  art,  new  and  old,  63  ;  of  only  one  man's  work,  a  mis 

take.  108. 


126  INDEX. 

Fables  for  cliildren,  about  animals,  etc.,  59-60. 

Fairies,  in  literature  and  art,  57  seq. 

Faiiiy-i.and,  Lect.  IV. ;  fairy  stories,  53-54,  58-63. 

Faith,  is  to  trust  without  evidence,  55  ;  its  freedom  and  responsibility, 
54. 

Fancy,  modern  extinction  of  the,  56  ;  and  faith,  55 ;  fostering  of  the,  56. 

Features  and  character,  83. 

'  Fides,'  defined,  36. 

Fielding,  Copley,  atmospheric  effects  of,  96-97 ;  author  taught  by, 
95  ;  and  author's  father,  his  first  art  purchase  a  picture  by,  95; 
inventive  power  of,  limited,  96  ;  Turner  s  effect  on,  90  ;  vecteta- 
tion  of,  100;   '  Cader  Idris,'  100  ;  in  Oxford  Galleries,  93-94. 

Figure,  drawing  of  the,  and  the  rise  of  art,  38;  study,  at  Oxford, 
82-83. 

FiLDES,  Mr.  Luke,  Venetian  pictures  of,  117. 

Fisher,  Mr. ,  and  the  Oxford  Galleries,  34. 

Flemish  school,  children  of  the,  62  ;  manner  of  tlie,  23. 

'  Flight  into  Egypt,' painting'  of,  by  H.  Hunt  and  others,  13. 

Florence,  palaces  of,  73  ;  Spanish  Chapel,  frescoes,  42  ;  Uflizi,  per- 
fect portrait  in  the,  44. 

Fortune's  wheel,  idea  of,  26. 

Foster,  Birkett,  children  by,  64. 

Francesca.     See  Alexander,  17. 

French  modern  art,  109  ;  book  on  science  for  a  child,  '  Les  Pourquoi 
de  Mile.  Suzanne,'  75,  102  ;  contempt  for  provincial  art,  109  ; 
landscape,  modern,  96 ;  language,  essentially  critical,  65 ;  Revo- 
lution, 62. 

Frere,  E.  .  children  by.  63. 

.T'URNESS  Abbey,  railroad  near,  116. 

Furniture,  aesthetic,  73. 

Gaboriau,  97. 

Gainsborough,  formal,  92  :  Gothic,  88  ;  greatness  of,  40  ;  and  Rey- 
nolds, 107;  last  words  of  ("Vandyke  is  of  the  company"),  38; 
pictures  by:  'Blue  Boy, '40;  'Mrs.  Graham,'  H).;  *  Miss  Heath- 
field,' /6.;  large  work  (No.  789),  '  Portraits  oc  J.  Baillie  and  his  fam- 
ily,') in  National  Gallery,  91. 

Genoa,  palaces  of,  73. 

Gentleman,  essentials  of  a,  Horace  on  the,  36.  ' 

Ghiberti,  gates  of,  73. 

GiORGioNE,  his  home,  Venice,  110;  his  'Madonna'  (Florence),  118. 

Girtin,  T.,  water-colours  of,  94  ;  waterfall  by  (British  Museum),  97. 

Gladstone,  W.  E.  ,  '  Punch '  on,  80. 

• Miss,  portrait  of,  by  Burne-Jones,  33. 

Glaucus'  armour,  47. 

Goethe,  'Faust,'  89  ;  morbid  side  of,  ib. 

Good,  all,  is  bought  with  toil  and  tears,  11. 

Goodness  and  beauty,  49, 

Goodwin,  Mr.  Albert,  pictures  of  (Old  Water-colour  Society,  1884\  117. 

Gothic  art,  no  children  in,  till  1200  a.d.,  62  ;  and  classic,  36  ;  their 
continuity,  36-37 ;  and  union  in  N.  Pisano's  pulpit,  39  ;  portrait- 
ure, especially  Gothic,  43  ;  period  to  study — irx  England  up  to 
Black  Prince,  in  France,  up  to  S.  Louis.  39 ;  writing,  38. 


INDEX.  127 

Grace  in  art,  57. 

Great  men  belong  to  their  own  village,  39,  84. 

Greek  art,  bodily  beauty  and,  4(i  ;  chiaroscuro  in,  32,  47 ;  no  chil- 
dren in,  45.  (52  ;  colour  in,  sense  of,  weak,  32  ;  conception  lofty  in, 
il).  ;  formalism  of,  91 ;  the  ideal  in  (Homer  quoted  on),  46-47 ; 
period  to  study.  Homer  to  Marathon,  39  ;  portraiture  destroys,  43  ; 
is  praise  of  Greek  virtues,  19  ;  and  the  glory  of  war,  39,  52. 

Greenaway,  Kate,  M.  (Jhesneauon,  65  aeq.;  children  of,  63  ;  delicacy 
of,  68;  decorative  qualities  of,  67-68;  design  of,  ornamental, 
i'i.;  fairies.  66  ;  genius  of,  63  ;  can  draw  a  girl,  but  not  a  pig,  109  ; 
landscape  of,  simple,  68-69  ;  minuteness  of,  66  ;  pencil-work  of,  66  ; 
to  paint  pictures,  not  decorate  books,  67  ;  public,  the,  to  whom 
her  work  appeals,  71  ;  realism  in,  69  ;  reproductions  of  her  works 
might  be  better,  67  »eq, 

Greenaway,  K.,  brother  of,  his  photographs,  77. 

GuiDO,  cannot  be  reproduced  in  wood-cutting,  78. 

Happiness,  doctrine  of,  12. 

Harmonicon,  for  Coniston  school,  legend  on,  86. 

Hartwig,  Dr.,  on  Norway,  quoted,  16. 

Heaven,  the  question  is,  are  we  going  towards,  83. 

Henry  VIII.,  destroys  English  religion,  91  ;  coins  of,  vulgar,  t&. 

Herkomer,  Mr.,  his  proper  and  his  actual  subjects,  116. 

Hero-worship,  admiration  is  mainly,  24  ;  of  painters,  35. 

Hesiod,  on  Hercules'  shield,  28. 

Hogarth,  M.  Chesueau  on,  65. 

Holbein,  38  ;  delineation  of,  79  ;  'George  Guysen  '  (Berlin  Museum), 
44. 

Homer,  on  shield  of  Achilles,  28  ;  on  Achilles  on  the  ramparts  (Iliad 
xviii.  203-6,  225-7),  46. 

Hook,  Mr.,  his  sea-pictures,  117. 

Hope,  defined,  25. 

Horace,  quoted,  37. 

Hunt,  Holman,  and  the  Bible,  his  view  and  Rossetti's,  7 ;  .as  a  colourist, 
8  ;  chiaroscuro  of,  intense  light,  13  (see  below,  "sunshine");  chil- 
dren by,  24 ;  hero-worship,  35 ;  invention,  swift  grace  of,  13  ;  ma- 
terial veracity  of,  21 ;  Rossetti's  disciple,  7  ;  Rossetti  compared  with 
him,  8-9;  sunshine  of,  9-10,  11;  works  by:  'Awakening  Con- 
science,'8 ;  '  Claudio  and  Isabel,' 8  ;  'Flight  into  Egypt,' 12-13  ; 
'Light  of  the  World.'  8;  'Scapegoat,'  11  ;  'Strayed  Sheep,'  its 
greatness,  marks  an  era  in  art,  9  ;  '  Valentine  and  Sylvia,'  8. 

Hunt,  William,  90  ;  limited  power  of,  109. 

Ida,'  '  The  Story  of.     See  Alexander,  50-66. 

Ideas,  painting  of,  40. 

Illustrations,  modern  popular,  71  seq.     See  Books,  Newspapers. 

Imagination,  of  children  to  be  stimulated,  73  ;  conceives  beautifully 
amid  beauty,  40  ;  does  not  create,  but  reveals,  70 ;  of  great  men, 
visionary,  59  ;  after  the  Renaissance,  its  reawakening,  93 ;  and 
repose  of  mind,  105. 

Infidelity,  modern,  55. 

Inge,  Mrs.,  on  Robson,  98 

Inqelow,  Miss,  '  Stories  told  to  a  Child,'  84 


12S  INDEX.  "\ 

Invention,  in  children,  to  be  stimulated,  55. 
'lOLANTHE,'  allusion  to,  58. 
Iphigenia,  11. 
Isaac,  11. 

Italy,  art  of  modern,  109  ;  comic  journals  of,  79 ;  peasantry  and  pool 
of,  16-17. 

Japanese  art,  32  ;  book  of  stories  (Macmillau,  1871),  61. 

John  Bull.     See  Bull,  84. 

Jones,  E.  Burne.     See  Burne-Jones,  32-33. 

Keats,  sadness  of,  90  ;  quoted,  "  A  thing  of  beauty,"  72. 

Kensington  Museum,  examples  of  Gothic  architecture  at,  36. 

Kent,  wood-carving  of,  73. 

Kinglake,  on  the  press,  56  ;  his  travels  in  the  East,  96. 

Knowledge,  divinity  and  value  of,  104. 

'  Knowledge,'  bad  illustrations  to,  75. 

Labour,  good,  bought  with  toil  and  tears,  11. 

Lady- ARTIST  in  Venice  1876,  15. 

Landscape,  authors  love  of,  88;  and  "unaided  nature,"  68;  art, 
recent  and  already  declining,  88  ;  art,  as  influenced  by  Byron 
and  Scott,  94  ;  especially  English,  94  ;  French,  manner  of  mod- 
ern, 96;  and  the  Old  Water-colour  Society,  90;  Richard  Wilson 
and,  93  seq.     See  Greenaavay,  66. 

Landseer's  '  Shepherd's  Chief  Mourner,'  38. 

Law,  a  thing  of  beauty  a  law  for  ever,  49. 

Leech,  John,  M.  Chesneau  on,  65  ;  genius  of,  79  ;  kindness  of,  79; 
founds  '  Punch,'  79 ;  satire  of,  bl  ;  wood-cutting,  77  ;  pictures 
of:  'Miss  Alice  riding,'  his  best  .sketch,  80  ;  'Distinguished  For- 
eigner,' 84. 

Leighton,  Sir  F. ,  anatomy  of,  44  ;  children  by,  ib.;  Correggio-like 
'  vaghezza '  of,  45  ;  figure-study  of,  45 ;  Gothic  spirit  of,  43  ;  his 
house,  56  ;  drawings  of  '  Byzantine  well,'  45  ;  lemon  tree,  ib. 

Leopold,  Prince,  and  the  Turner  drawings  at  Oxford,  2. 

*Les  Pourquoi  de  Mile.  Suzanne  '  {see  Science),  74-102. 

Leslie,  Mr.,  Thames  pictures  by,  117. 

Lewis,  John,  technical  accuracy  of,  46. 

Librarian,  proper  function  of  a  public,  17.     See  Norway,  17. 

Libraries  in  Norway,  17. 

Liebreich,  "  foreign  oculist,"  on  changes  of  sight,  101. 

Light,  sense  of,  in  art  and  poetry,  47 ;  and  cloud,  in  Greek  art,  69. 
See  Sunshine. 

*  Light  of  the  World.'    See  Hunt,  H.,  7. 

Lily,  author's  cousin,  and  her  doll,  55. 

Lindsay,  Lord,  his  book  on  "  Christian  art,"  28;  division  of  Christian 
art  into  spiritual  (head)  and  fleshly  (body),  43. 

Line-drawing,  78. 

'  Lingua,'  defined,  36. 

Lion,  the  British,  84-85. 

Literature.     See  Books,  Children,  Newspapers,  63. 

London,  as  an  art-school,  110  ;  its  effect  on  artists,  116  neq.;  its  misery, 
80. 


INDEX.  l-l'd 

Love,  defined,  25. 

LuCA  BELLA  KOBBTA,  children  of,  18,  62  ;  '  Nativity'  by,  story  of  child 

kissing,  41  ;  unites  Classic  and  Gothic  art,  38. 
LuiNl,  children  by,  G2  ;  his  best  works  at  Milan,  23,  109. 
Lycurgus,  the  laws  of,  and  beauty,  49. 

Macdonald,  a.  (author's  assistant  at  Oxford),  6,  103  ;  copy  of  Turner 
by,  70. 

Magazines,  modern  cheap,  74. 

Manchesteu  Exhibition  1851,  48. 

Mantegna's  tree-drawing,  115. 

Masufactubes  and  children,  63;  English,  84. 

Marks,  H.  Stacey,  his  pictures  'The  Professor,'  'Three  Postboys,' 
'Lord  Say  and  Jack  Cade,'  45. 

Marochetti,  qualities  of  greatness,  30 ;  his  '  Richard  Coeur  de  Lion,' 
lb.;  sees  Rossetti's  drawings  at  Heme  Hill,  ib. 

Marrl\ge,  honour  to,  50. 

Marshall,  Mr.  Herbert,  pictures  of  (Old  Water-colour  Society,  1884), 
117. 

Materialistic  conception  of  Rossetti  and  Hunt,  6,  21.  See  Realism, 
70. 

Microscope,  use  of  the,  in  seeing  art,  68.     See  Bewick,  16. 

MiLLAis,  J.  E.,  '  Caller  Herrin,'  a  Pre-Raphaelite  work,  23. 

MiNO  da  Fesole,  children  by,  62. 

Minuteness  of  work  in  art,  22. 

Misery,  12 ;  of  the  poor  in  London,  80. 

Missals,  Gothic,  37. 

Mist,  Scotch,  94. 

Mitford,  Miss,  and  feeling  for  children,  63. 

Modernism,  selfish  greed  of,  11.     See  Infidelity,  55. 

Monte  Cassino,  Benedictine  MS.  at,  38. 

Moral  philosophy  and  Greek  myths,  39. 

MoRAN  (American  artist),  54. 

'  Mores  '  defined,  36. 

Morris,  W.,  lecture  on  'Art  and  Plutocracy,'  104;  friendship  with 
Burne-Jones,  29  ;  maxim  that  excellence  of  work  depends  on  our 
joy  in  it,  100  ;  on  mythology,  28. 

Mountains,  love  of,  in  Scott,  Byron,  and  Wordsworth,  143,  151 ; 
author's  early,  ih. ,  98. 

Mouse,  fables  of  town  and  country,  etc.,  60. 

Murray,  A.,  on  Greek  sculpture  (Achilles'  shield),  27. 

,  C.  F. ,  his  copies  of  Botticelli's  frescoes  on  education,  41. 

Muses,  the  laws  of  the,  49. 

Musical  instrument  for  Coniston  school,  86. 

Mystery,  idea  of,  in  ancient  art,  47  ;  of  conception,  no  excuse  for  care- 
less treatment,  30. 

Mythic  art,  its  teaching  and  truth,  26 ;  dislike  of,  by  practical  peo- 
ple, 34. 

Mythology,  25  ;  men's  wisest  thoughts  expressed  in,  27  ;  painting  of 
old,  by  a  modern  painter,  his  function,  28. 

Myths,  in  art,  with  what  precision  to  be  given,  28  ;  defined.  26  ;  de- 
velopment of,  26  ;  moral  philosophy  and,  27;  power  of  noble,  28,- 
how  far  representative  of  the  ideas  they  symbolize,  27. 


130  INDEX. 

National  Galleky,  pictures  badly  hung  in  the,  23,  92;  Turner 
drawings  in  its  cellars,  8d.  See  Teniers,  92 ;  Vanderneer,  92  ; 
Vandyke,  02. 

National  unity,  impossible,  40.     See  Great  men,  39,  84. 

Nature,  author's  love  of,  7  seq.;  beauty  of  untouched,  68-70;  feel- 
ing for,  24  ;  materials  of,  adapted  to  art,  72. 

Newspapers,  illustrated,  good  portraiture  in  the,  48  ;  influence  of,  50  ; 
Italian  comic,  79. 

NiccoLA  PiSANO,  engrafts  classicism  on  Christian  art,  28  ;  unites  Classic 
and  Gothic  art,  e.g.,  his  pulpit,  39. 

Nineteenth  century,  domestic  spirit  of,  20.     See  Modernism,  11. 

NiTRO-GLYCERiNE,  compels  belief,  5o. 

Norway,  peasant  life  in,  16  ;  every  town  has  its  library,  17. 

NuMA,  49. 

Old-fasiiioned,  distinction  of  being,  14. 

Old  Water  Colour  Society,  in  former  years,  90 ;  Exhibition  (1884), 
117. 

Orcagna,  59  ;  imaginative  vision  of,  59. 

Oriental  art,  37. 

Ouida's  'Village  Commune,'  18. 

Oxford, — education  the  ford  of  life,  52,  but  not  a  means  of  livelihood, 
104 ;  motto,  47  ;  town  ruined  by  improvempuis,  69,  82,  103  ; 
Magdalen  Bridge,  widened,  52  ;  Museum,  and  Dr.  Acland,  99  ;  St. 
John's  gardens,  70 ;  Schools,  the  new,  82  ;  Taylorian  (Ruskin  Art 
Schools  and  Galleries),  catalogues  to,  288  ;  author's  plans  for  cer- 
tificates of  merit,  etc.,  19,  100,  105;  figure-study  at,  81  ;  limited 
room  in,  82;  pictures,  etc,  in:  Bewicks  woodcuts,  76;  Burg- 
maier's  woodcuts,  ib.;  legend  on  a  harmonicon,  86;  drawing  by 
Copley  Fielding,  95 ;  '  Sunset  at  Rome,'  97 ;  Tintoret,  '  Doge 
Mocenigo/  87  ;  Turner  drawings,  6,  70. 

Pain,  pleasure  not  its  outcome,  12. 

Painter,  difficulty  of  finish,  33 ;  to  paint  what  he  sees,  not  what  h« 
wishes  to  see,  102. 

Painting,  manner  of,  compelled  by  realism,  22. 

Palmerston,  '  Punch  '  on,  80. 

Paris,  Louvre,  Botticelli's  frescoes  in  the,  41. 

Parliament,  Houses  of.  Watts'  designs  for  frescoes,  33. 

Paton,  Sir  Noel,  fairy  pictures  of  'Titania,'  *  Fairy  Raid,'  58. 

pENCiiy,  the  best  instrument  for  fine  work,  66. 

Personal  feelings,  expressible  only  in  poetry,  10. 

Personification  in  art,  25. 

Perugino,  children  by,  62  ;  crowns  Gothic  art,  37. 

Peter,  drowning  of,  'Modern  Painters'  on  the,  21. 

Pets,  children's,  56. 

Photographs  and  art,  43 ;  of  Burne-Jones'  pictures,  33  ;  and  portrait- 
ure, 33. 

Physiognomy,  study  of,  and  character,  83. 

PiCARDY,  wood-carving  of,  75. 

Pictures,  only  recently  made  a  common  means  of  decoration,  53. 

Pindar,  myths  of,  27. 

PieA,  Niccola  Pieano'e  puljot  at,  89. 


INDEX.  131 

Pity,  tlie  lesson  to  be  learnt,  13. 

Plato,  myths  used  by,  for  his  highest  teaching,  27  ;  on  finish  in  paint- 
ing ("  Laws  "  quoted),  42. 

Pi.EASUUE,  not  the  outcome  of  pain,  12. 

Poetry,  boldness  of  expression  in  great,  103  ;  the  oul}'  means  of  giving 
personal  feelings,  10 ;  perfect,  precedes  perfect  painting,  37. 

Political  economy,  author's  paradoxes  of,  71. 

PoMPEiAN  ART,  Specimen  of.  39. 

Poor,  the,  and  beauty,  81  ;  dwellings  of  to  be  orderly,  or  there  can  be 
no  art,  71  ;  misery  of,  12.     See  Italy,  38. 

Portraiture,  all,  is  Gothic,  43  ;  great  portraits  must  also  be  great  pict- 
ures. 44  ;  modern,  desire  to  be  painted  as  proud  or  grand,  48  ;  per- 
fect examples  of  {see  Florence,  Holbein),  38  ;  power  of,  a  com- 
mon gift,  44. 

Power,  the  noblest,  man's  own  strength,  66. 

Praise.     See  Criticism.  107. 

Pj{E-Raphaelitis.\i,  modern,  defined,  22,  23;  dislike  of  by  practical 
people,  34 ;  minuteness  of  work  in,  not  essential,  22  ;  personifioatioa 
and,  23;  the  school  of,  6;  truth  of,  26. 

Press,  the  public,  its  value,  56. 

Price,  everything  has  but  one  just,  72. 

Priest,  dislike  of  the  word  by  English  public,  17. 

Priesthood  of  Western  world,  its  character,  47. 

Profession,  choice  of  a,  and  means  of  livelihood,  104. 

Progress,  the  direction  more  important  than  the  distance  reached,  38- 

Prout,  S.,  90. 

Public  opinion  and  the  press,  56. 

'Punch,'  the  artists  of,  townsmen,  85;  the  laws  of  beauty,  78;  Be- 
dell, Sir  Pompey,  83 ;  Bull,  John,  the  farmer,  84  ;  '  defends  his 
pudding.' 86  ;  children  in,  80;  on  the  Continent,  85;  the  found- 
ers of,  77  ;  girls  in,  80-81  ;  illustrations  to,  best  sketch  in,  80  ; 
'immortal  periodical,'  79  ;  on  manufactures,  says  but  little,  84; 
politics  of,  80  (nee  under  Gladstone  and  others)  ;  on  the  poor, 
does  not  give  their  beauty,  80 ;  as  expressing  public  opinion,  84  ; 
social  types  in,  80;  on  society  and  wealth,  81  ;  quoted,  50.  See 
Du  Maurier,  Leech,  Tenniel,  79. 

Puritan,  old.  view  of  the  Bible,  8. 

Pyrrhic  dance,  the,  47.     See  Byron, 

Railroads  and  scenery,  116  ;  as  subjects  of  landscape  art,  68. 

Raphael's  children,  62. 

Realism  in  art,  70  ;   its  value  as  compelling  belief,  21 ;  as  affecting 

manner  and  minuteness  of  work,  22. 
Religion  and  repo.^e,  105-106. 
Rembrandt's  children,  62. 

Renaissance,  luxury  of  the,  62  ;  poison  of  the,  48. 
Repose  of  mind,  105. 

Resurrection,  the,  the  mainspring  of  all  lovely  work,  13. 
Rethel,  Alfred,  his  'Death  the  Avenger'  and  ' Barbarossa,'  59. 
Retsch's  '  Faust,'  '  Leonora,'  '  Poetry,'  59. 
Reynolds,  Sir  J.,  38  ;  children  by,  62  ;  dress,  painting  of,  60  ;  faults 

of.    108  ;    formality  in,  90  ;    compared   with  Gainsborough,   108  ; 

greatness  of,  39,  108 ;    exhibition  of  his  works  at  Academy   and 


132  INDEX. 

Grosvenor  Gallery  (1883),  108;  his  variety,  ib.;  pictures  by,  'Mra. 
Abington'  as  '  Miss  Prue,'  108  ;  'Age  of  Innocence,'  40  ;  Cherubs' 
heads.  43  ;  '  Mrs.  Nesbit '  as  '  Circe,'  108  ;  '  Mrs.  Pelham,'  40 ;  '  Mrs. 
Sheridan'  as  'St.  Cecilia,'  108. 

Richmond.  George,  old  friend  of  author,  5. 

,  Prof.   W.,  at  Oxford,  5;  figure-study   classes  of,  82;    resigns 

the  chair,  5 ;  portraits  by,  Grosvenor  Gallery  (1883),  43. 

RiCHTER,  Ludwig,  children  by,  62  ;  designs  of,  24  ;  outlines  of,  32 ; 
'  Lord's  Prayer,'  31  ;  '  Wide,  Wide  World,'  81. 

Rrv^ALRY,  evils  of,  59. 

Riviere,  B.,  his  '  Sympathy,'  38. 

RoBBiA.     See  Luc  a. 

RoBSON,  90  ;  inventive  power  small,  91  ;  temper  of,  98  ;  '  outlines 
of  Scotch  scenery,'  99  ;  picture  of,  copied,  98. 

RoLFES  engraving  of  '  Ida,'  66. 

ROMAGNA,  the  poor  of,  18. 

Roman  Catholics  and  the  Bible,  51. 

Romance,  of  an  artist  in  his  sublject,  91  ;  definition  of,  24 ;  meaning 
of  word,  6,  91. 

Rome,  the  pomp  of,  48  ;  sunset  at  (picture  Oxford  schools),  92. 

RossETTi,  D.  G.,  anatomy  of,  31  ;  and  the  Bible,  8;  his  colour,  7-8  ; 
not  a  chiaroscurist,  33  ;  exhibition  of  his  works  (1883),  107  ;  genius 
of,  when  highest,  7  ;  a  hero  worshipper,  35  ;  Holman  Hunt  his  dis- 
ciple, 7  ;  compared  with  him,  8-9  ;  "  material  veracity  "  of,  8,  21 
Marochetti's  view  of  his  drawings,  31  ;  painting  of,  its  faults,  9 
poetical  genius  of,  7  ;  and  the  romantic  school,  its  chief  force,  6 
temper  of,  9  ;  works  of:   'Passover'  (Oxford  schools),  21 ;   'Virgin 
in  the  house  of  St.  John,'  8,  21. 

Rubens,  children  of,  62 ;  and  the  Renaissance,  62. 

Sacrifice,  the  doctrine  of,  11. 

St.  Augustine  in  England,  85. 

St.  Cecilia,  24.     See  Reynolds,  24. 

St.  Christopher,  52.     See  Alexander,  52, 

St.  Columba  in  England,  85, 

St.  Genevieve,  51, 

St.  George,  24. 

St.  George's  guild,  drawings  of,  lent  to  Oxford,  82, 

St.  Ursula,  Venice  Academy,  43. 

Satire,  power  of,  80.     See  Leech. 

Scenery,  destruction  of,  89  ;  northern  and  southern  compared,  94 ; 
and  railroads,  116  ;  Scott's,  Sir  W.,  love  of,  ib. 

Scepticism  and  science,  26. 

Schaffiiausen,  railway  over  the  falls  of,  116. 

Science,  French  book  for  a  child  on,  102  ;  modern,  on  pain  and  pleas- 
ure, 12  ;  and  scepticism,  26  ;  suggestions  for,  60, 

Scotch  mists,  94. 

Scott,  Sir  W. ,  influence  of,  on  landscape  art,  94  ;  love  of  mountains, 
95  ;  scenery  of,  94  ;  romance  of ,  7  ;  '  Monastery,'  its  faults,  58 ; 
'  White  Lady  of  Avenel,'  58. 

Severn,  Mr.  Arthur,  picture  of  Westminster  (1884),  117. 

SiiAKSPERE,  '  Midsummer  Night's  Dream '  on  fairies,  57  ;  quoted,  57. 

Sheridan,  Mrs,     See  Reynolds,  108, 


INDEX.  133 

Bybii.,  a  Tuscan,  49.     See  Alexander,  49. 

Sight,  tlie  unaided,  and  art,  68 ;   does  not  change  in  quality,  101 ;  and 

colour.  100  ;  a  great  painter's,  authoritative,  100. 
SiMPLON,  the,  railroad  over,  IKi. 
Sketch-book,  no  artist  uses  a  hlock-book,  113 
Sky,  the  blue  of  the.  and  sunlight,  Wigeq.;  cyanometer,  author's,  113  { 

after  storm,  described  by  Wordsworth,  102-103. 
Smoke  nuisance,  the  modern,  102. 
Soul,  the  best  questions  of  a  true,  11. 
South  Amekica.  hideous  illustrations  of,  75. 
Stanfield,  as  influenced  by  Turner,  90. 
Stokm  Cloud,  the.  111  f^  neq. 
Strahan's  '  Magazine  for  Youth.'  June  1879,  59. 
Strength,  th«  noblest,  that  of  unaided  man,  68. 
Suffering,  accepted  and  involuntarv,  12. 
Sun,  the  descriptio  ,  of  (May  20,  1884),  112. 
Sunset,  the  '  demoniac '  beauty  of  the  (Americanism),  75,  102. 
Sunshine,  the  author  s  love  of,  inexpressible,  9-10-11.     See  Claude, 

CuYP,  Hunt,  Turner,  11,  12. 
Symbolism  in  realistic  art.  Pre-Raphaelitism,  22. 
Symbols  do  not  give  the  dignity  of  the  ideas  they  represent,  25. 
Sy^monds,  Miss  (Oxford),  Copley  Fielding  in  possession  of,  100. 
Sympathy,  intellectual,  '  no  man  can  enter  fully  into  the  mind  of  an* 

other,'  26. 

Tadema,   Alma,   classic  in  what  sense,  38 ;    marble  painting  of,  46 

technical   accuracy  of,    46  ;    tone    of    revolutionary   rage   in,    48 

twilight   of   his   pictures,    47:  Grosvenor   Gallery  Collection,   47 

Pyrrhic-dance,  47. 
Taine,  M.  .  on  the  growth  of  art,  75. 
Taste,  the  formation  of,  20. 
Tendency',  the  direction  more  important  than  the  distance  reached, 

38. 
Tenters'  '  Chateau  at  Perck,'  National  Gallery,  92. 
Tenniel,  his  imagination,   and  Tintoret  s.  87 ;   his  power   and   tone, 

79  ;    what  he  might  have  done,  85 ;   '  Punch '   founded   by.    79  ; 

works  of :  Cartoon  No.  38.  85;  'John  Bull  defends  his  Pudding,' 

86  ;  '  Liberty  and  France,'  84. 
Tennyson,    his   genius    highest    in    '  Maud,'    '  In    Memoriam,'   and 

'Northern  Farmer,' 7  ;  romantic,  7  ;  quoted:   *  Idylls  of  the  King' 

— "Turn,   fortune,   turn  thy  wheel,"' 25  ;    'In  Memoriam,'  liv. — 

"  Jhe  final  goal  of  ill,"  15. 
Terror  in  art,  59. 
Thebes,  the  seven  against,  46-47. 
Theseus,  91. 
Tintoret,  masses  of,  87  ;  pictures  by  :  the  new  addition  to  National 

Gallery,  95 ;  Doge  Mocenigo  (Oxford  Schools),  87. 
Titian,  drawing  of  trees  by,  115. 
Tobacco,  110. 

TOPFFER,  Swiss  caricaturist,  his  life,  81  ;  his  '  Histoire  d' Albert,'  ib. 
Toys  for  children,  what  they  like,  54-55. 
Transparency,  defined,  78. 
Tree-drawing,  modern,  as  compared  with  Titian's,  114. 


134  INDEX. 

Truth,  the,  in  Pre-Baphaelite  art,  22-27 ;  in  Tnnier,  70. 

Turner,  his  character  and  genius,  89  ;  paints  clouds,  but  never  a 
flower,  10?)  ;  foregrounds  of,  no  flower  in  any,  89;  his  landscape, 
beyond  all  other,  not  representative  of  it,  89 ;  effect  of,  on  con- 
temporary art,  87  ;  minuteness  in  his  work,  22  ;  sadness  of,  89  ; 
sight  of,  JOI  ;  sunshine  of,  its  bold  conventionalism,  10  ;  truth,  his 
magic  in  his,  70;  works  of.  'Loire,'  70;  National  Gallery  draw- 
ings, 22,  88  ;  Oxford,  drawings  at,  5,  35. 

Tuscany,  the  poor  of,  18,  51. 

Valerius,  91. 

Vandekneer,  his  'Canal  Scene '  (National  Gallery),  91  ;  the  'Evening 

Landscape'  (National  Gallery),  ih. 
Vandyke,  children  by,  62  ;  Gainsborough's  last  words  on,  38  ;  and  the 

Renaissance,  89 ;   '  Draught  of  Fishes '  by  (National  Gallery),  23, 

91. 
Vautier,  Bavarian  artist,  34. 
Venice,  Academy,  Carpaccio's  S.  Ursula,  48  ;  master  of  works  at  Ducal 

Palace  (G.  Boni),  14. 
Virtues,  the,  and  Greek  art,  19. 
Visions  of  great  men,  58. 
Vivisection,  16. 
Vulgarity  of  selfishness,  91. 

Wainscoting,  old  English,  73. 

War.  and  Greek  art,  47. 

Water,  effect  on  colour  of  a  drop  of,  74. 

Colour,  old  English,  its  methods  and  labour,  97. 

Watts,  G.  F.,  completeness  of  his  work,  33 ;  Greek  feeling  in,  t5./ 
hero-worship  of,  35  ;  Houses  of  Parliament  frescoes,  designs  for, 
33. 

Wealth,  evils  of,  63. 

Weather,  good  and  bad,  95-96  ;  bad,  worse  in  lowlands  than  in 
highlands,  115  ;  modern,  its  deterioration,  and  recent  phenomena 
(May  20,  1884),  110  seq.;  the  effect  of  it  on  artists,  108,  115. 

WiLKiE,  children  by,  '63. 

Wilson,  Richard,  the  first  sincere  landscape  artist,  93. 

Women  cannot  paint,  author's  saying  that,  15. 

Wood-carving,  mediaeval,  73. 

Wood-cutting  :  American,  77 ;  not  meant  to  print  blots,  76  ;  cheap, 
75  ;  ease  and  danger  of,  74  ;  flesh  tint,  rendering  of,  77  ;  mod- 
ern methods  of,  77  ;  and  sculpture,  material  for,  76  ;  transpar- 
ency in,  how  given,  77 ;  readily  expresses  ugliness  or  terroi*,  74. 

Wordsworth,  children  of,  63  ;  love  of  mountains,  100 ;  Society,  118  ; 
quoted:  *  Excursion,' Book  ii.,  100;  Sonnets— "We  live  by  ad- 
miration," 24  ;    "  The  world  is  too  much  with  us,"  58. 

Work,  goodness  of,  in  proportion  to  our  joy  in  it,  100. 

Youth,  praise  of  modern  English,  87. 


THB  EinX 


NOTES 


CONSTRUCTION  OF   SHEEPFOLDS 


BY 


JOHN  EUSKIN,  M.A. 

JlDTHOR  of  "  THE  SEVEN  LAMPS  OF  ARCHITECTURE,"  ETC. 


NEW  YORK 
UNITED   STATES   BOOK  COMPANY 

SUCCESSORS    TO 

JOHN    W.    LOVELL    COMPANY 

142   TO    150  WORTH   STREET 


ADYEETISEMEJl^T. 


Many  persons  will  probably  find  fault  with  me  for  publishing 
opinions  which  are  not  new  ;  but  I  shall  bear  this  blame  con- 
tentedly, believing  that  opinions  on  this  subject  could  hardly 
be  just  if  they  were  not  1800  years  old.  Others  will  blame 
me  for  making  proposals  which  are  altogether  new  ;  to  whom 
I  would  answer,  that  things  in  these  days  seem  not  so  far 
right  but  that  they  may  be  mended.  And  others  will  simply 
call  the  opinions  false  and  the  proposals  fooUsh — to  whose 
good  will,  it  they  take  it  in  hand  to  contradict  me,  I  must 
leave  what  I  have  written — having  no  purpose  of  being 
drawn,  at  present,  into  religious  controversy.  If,  however, 
any  should  admit  the  truth,  but  regret  the  tone  of  what  I 
have  said,  I  can  only  pray  them  to  consider  how  much  less 
harm  is  done  in  the  woi*ld  by  ungraceful  boldness,  than  by 
untimely  Fear. 

Denmark  Hill, 
Feb.  1851. 


KOTES  o:n" 
THE  CONSTRUCTION  OF  SHEEPFOLDS. 


The  following  remarks  were  intended  to  form  part  of  the 
appendix  to  an  essay  on  Architecture  :  But  it  seemed  to  me, 
when  I  had  put  them  into  order,  that  they  might  be  useful  to 
persons  who  would  not  care  to  possess  the  work  to  which  I 
proposed  to  attach  them  ;  I  publish  them,  therefore,  in  a 
separate  form  ;  but  I  have  not  time  to  give  them  more  con- 
sistency than  they  would  have  had  in  the  subordinate  position 
originally  intended  for  them.  I  do  not  profess  to  teach 
Divinity  ;  and  I  pray  the  reader  to  understand  this,  and  to 
pardon  the  slightness  and  insufficiency  of  notes  set  down  with 
no  more  intention  of  connected  treatment  of  their  subject 
than  might  regulate  an  accidental  conversation.  Some  of 
them  ai*e  simply  copied  from  my  private  diary  ;  others  are 
detached  statements  of  facts,  which  seem  to  me  significative 
or  valuable,  without  comment ;  all  are  written  in  haste,  and 
in  the  intervals  of  occupation  with  an  entirely  different  sub- 
ject. It  may  be  asked  of  me,  whether  I  hold  it  light  to  speak 
thus  hastily  and  insufficiently  respecting  the  matter  in  ques- 
tion? Yes.  I  hold  it  right  to  S'peak  hastily:  not  to  Udnk 
hastily.  I  have  not  thought  hastily  of  these  things ;  and,  be- 
sides, the  haste  of  speech  is  confessed,  that  the  reader  may 
think  of  me  only  as  talking  to  him,  and  saying,  as  shortly  and 
simply  as  I  can,  things  which,  if  he  esteem  them  foolish  or 
idle,  he  is  welcome  to  cast  aside ;  but  which,  in  very  truth,  I 
cannot  help  saying  at  this  time. 


6  NOTES  ON  THE 

The  passages  in  the  essay  which  required  notes,  described 
the  repression  of  the  poUtical  power  of  the  Venetian  Clergy 
by  the  Venetian  Senate  ;  and  it  became  necessary  for  me — in 
supporting  an  assertion  made  in  the  course  of  the  inquiry, 
that  the  idea  of  separation  of  Church  and  State  was  both  vain 
and  impious — to  limit  the  sense  in  which  it  seemed  to  me 
that  the  word  "  Chiu'ch  "  should  be  understood,  and  to  note 
one  or  two  consequences  which  would  result  from  the  ac- 
ceptance of  such  limitation.  This  I  may  as  well  do  in  a  sepa- 
rate paper,  readable  by  any  person  interested  in  the  subject ; 
for  it  is  high  time  that  some  definition  of  the  word  should  be 
agreed  upon.  I  do  not  mean  a  definition  involving  the  doc- 
trine of  this  or  that  division  of  Christians,  but  limiting,  in  a 
manner  understood  by  all  of  them,  the  sense  in  which  the 
word  should  thenceforward  be  used.  There  is  grievous  in- 
convenience in  the  present  state  of  things.  For  instance,  in  a 
sermon  lately  published  at  Oxford,  by  an  anti  Tractarian 
divine,  I  find  this  sentence, — "It  is  clearly  within  the  prov- 
ince of  the  State  to  establish  a  national  church,  or  external  in- 
stitution of  certain  forms  of  loorship  :  "  Now  suppose  one  were 
to  take  this  intei-pretation  of  the  word  "  Chui'ch"  given  by  an 
Oxford  divine,  and  substitute  it  for  the  simple  word  in  some 
Bible  Texts,  as  for  instance,  "  Unto  the  angel  of  the  external 
institution  of  certain  forms  of  worship  of  Ephesus,"  &c.  Or, 
"  Salute  the  brethren  M'hich  are  in  Laodicea,  and  Nymphas, 
and  the  external  institution  of  certain  forms  of  worship  which 
is  in  his  house," — what  awkward  results  we  should  have,  here 
and  there  !  Now  I  do  not  say  it  is  possible  for  men  to  agree 
with  each  other  in  their  religious  opinions,  but  it  is  certainly 
possible  for  them  to  agree  with  each  other  upon  their  religious 
expressions  ;  and  when  a  word  occurs  in  the  Bible  a  hundred 
and  fourteen  times,  it  is  surely  not  asking  too  much  of  con- 
tending divines  to  let  it  stand  in  the  sense  in  which  it  there 
occurs  ;  and  when  they  want  an  expression  of  something  for 
which  it  does  not  stand  in  the  Bible,  to  use  some  other  word. 
There  is  no  compromise  of  religious  opinion  in  this  :  it  is 
simply  proper  respect  for  the  Queen's  English. 

The  word  occurs  in  the  New  Testament,  as  I  said,  one  hun- 


CONSTRUCTION  OF  SHEEPFOLDS.  7 

dred  and  fourteen  times.*  In  every  one  of  those  occurrences, 
it  bears  one  and  the  same  gi-and  sense  :  that  of  a  congregation 
or  assembly  of  men.  But  it  bears  this  sense  under  four  dif- 
ferent modifications,  giving  four  separate  meanings  to  the 
word.     These  are — 

I.  The  entire  Multitude  of  the  Elect ;  otherwise  called  the 
Body  of  Christ ;  and  sometimes  the  Bride,  the  Lamb's  Wife  ; 
including  the  Faithful  in  all  ages  ;  Adam,  and  the  children  of 
Adam  yet  unborn. 

In  this  sense  it  is  used  in  Ephesians  v.  25,  27,  32  ;  Colos- 
sians  i.  18,  and  several  other  passages. 

II.  The  entire  multitude  of  professing  believers  in  Christ, 
existing  on  earth  at  a  given  moment ;  including  false  brethren, 
wolves  in  sheep's  clothing,  goats,  and  tares,  as  well  as  sheep 
and  wheat,  and  other  fonns  of  bad  fish  with  good  in  the  net. 

In  this  sense  it  is  used  in  1  Cor.  x.  32  ;  xv.  9  ;  Galatians  i. 
13,  1  Tim.  iii.  5,  &c. 

ni.  The  multitude  of  professed  believers,  living  in  a  certain 
city,  place,  or  house.  This  is  the  most  frequent  sense  in 
which  the  word  occurs,  as  in  Acts  vii.  38  ;  xiii.  1 ;  1  Cor.  i.  2  ; 
xvi.  19,  &c. 

IV.  Any  assembly  of  men  :  as  in  Acts  xix.  32,  41. 

That  in  a  hundred  and  twelve  out  of  the  hundred  and  fourteen 
texts,  the  word  bears  some  one  of  these  four  meanings,  is  in- 
disputable.f  But  there  are  two  texts  in  which,  if  the  word 
had  alone  occurred,  its  meaning  might  have  been  doubtful. 
These  are  Matt.  xvi.  18,  and  xviii.  17. 

The  absurdity  of  founding  any  doctrine  upon  the  inexpres- 
sibly minute  possibility  that  in  these  two  texts,  the  word 
might  have  been  used  with  a  diiferent  meaning  from  that  which 
it  bore  in  all  the  othei's,  coupled  with  the  assumption  that  the 

*I  may,  perhaps,  have  missed  count  of  one  or  two  occurrences  of  the 
word  ;  hut  not,  I  think,  in  any  important  passages. 

f  Tlie  expression  "House  of  God,"  in  Tim.  iii.  15,  is  shown  to  be  used 
of  the  congregation  by  1  Cor.  iii.  16,  17. 

I  have  not  noticed  the  word  KupwKii  (ol«ia),  from  which  the  German 
"  Kirche,"  the  English  "  Church."  and  the  Scotch  "  Kirk,"  are  derivedr 
as  it  is  not  n.-ed  with  that  ?isnification  in  the  Xew  Testament. 


S  KOTES  ON  THE 

meaning  was  this  or  that,  is  self-evident :  it  is  not  so  much  a 
religious  error  as  a  philological  solecism  ;  unparalleled,  so  far 
as  I  know,  in  any  other  science  but  that  of  divinity. 

Nor  is  it  ever,  I  think,  committed  with  open  front  by  Prot- 
estants. No  English  divine,  asked  in  a  straightforward  man- 
ner for  a  Scriptural  definition  of  "the  Church,"  would,  I  sup- 
pose, be  bold  enough  to  answer  "  the  Clergy."  Nor  is  there 
any  harm  in  the  common  use  of  the  word,  so  only  that  it  be 
distinctly  understood  to  be  not  the  Scriptural  one  ;  and  there- 
fore to  be  unfit  for  substitution  in  a  Scriptural  text.  There 
is  no  harm  in  a  man's  talking  of  his  son's  "  going  into  the 
Church  :  "  meaning  that  he  is  going  to  take  orders  ;  but  there 
is  much  harm  in  his  supposing  this  a  Scriptural  use  of  the 
word,  and  therefore,  that  when  Christ  said,  "TeU  it  to  the 
Church,"  He  might  possibly  have  meant,  "  Tell  it  to  the  Clergy." 

It  is  time  to  put  an  end  to  the  chance  of  such  misunder- 
standing. Let  it  but  be  declared  plainly  by  all  men,  when 
they  begin  to  state  their  opinions  on  mattei*s  ecclesiastical, 
that  they  will  use  the  word  "  Church "  in  one  sense  or  the 
other ; — That  they  will  accept  the  sense  in  which  it  is  used  by 
the  Apostles,  or  that  they  deny  this  sense,  and  propose  a  new 
definition  of  their  own.  We  shall  then  know  what  we  are 
about  with  them — we  may  perhaps  grant  them  their  new 
use  of  the  term,  and  argue  with  them  on  that  understanding ; 
so  only  that  they  will  not  pretend  to  make  use  of  Scriptural 
authority,  while  they  refuse  to  employ  Scriptural  language. 
This,  however,  it  is  not  my  purpose  to  do  at  present.  I  desire 
only  to  address  those  who  are  willing  to  accept  the  ApostoHc 
sense  of  the  word  Church,  and  with  them,  I.  would  endeavor 
shortly  to  ascertain  what  consequences  must  follow  from  an 
acceptance  of  that  Apostolic  sense,  and  what  must  be  our  first 
and  most  necessary  conclusions  from  the  common  language 
of  Scripture  *  respecting  these  following  points  : — 

*  Any  reference,  except  to  Scripture,  in  notes  of  this  kind  would  of 
course  be  useless :  the  argument  from,  or  with,  the  Fathers,  is  not  to  be 
compressed  into  fifty  pages.  I  have  something  to  say  about  Hooker ; 
but  I  reserve  that  for  another  time,  not  wishing  to  say  it  hastily,  or  tc 
leave  it  without  support. 


CONSTRUCTION  OF  SHEEPFOLDS.  9 

1.  The  distiuctive  characters  of  the  Church. 

2.  The  Authority  of  the  Church. 

3.  The  Authority  of  the  Clergy  over  the  Church. 

4.  The  connection  of  the  Church  with  the  State. 

These  are  four  separate  subjects  of  question  ;  but  we  shall 
not  have  to  put  these  questions  in  succession  with  each  of  the 
four  Scriptural  meanings  of  the  word  Church,  for  evidently  its 
second  and  third  meaning  may  be  considered  together,  as 
merely  expressing  the  general  or  particular  conditions  of  the 
Visible  Church,  and  the  fourth  signification  is  entirely  inde- 
pendent of  all  questions  of  a  religious  kind.  So  that  we  shall 
only  put  the  above  inquiries  successively  respecting  the  Invis- 
ible and  Visible  Church  ;  and  as  the  two  last, — of  authority 
of  Clergy,  and  connection  with  State — can  evidently  only  have 
reference  to  the  Visible  Church,  we  shall  have,  in  all,  these 
six  questions  to  considei'. 

1.  The  distinctive  characters  of  the  Invisible  Church. 

2.  The  distinctive  characters  of  the  Visible  Church. 

3.  The  Authority  of  the  Invisible  Church. 

4.  The  Authority  of  the  Visible  Church. 

5.  The  Authority  of  Clergy  over  the  Visible  Church. 

6.  The  Connection  of  the  Visible  Church  with  the  State. 

1.  What  are  the  distinctive  characters  of  the  Invisible 
Church  ;  that  is  to  say,  What  is  it  which  makes  a  person  a 
member  of  this  Church,  and  how  is  he  to  be  known  for  such  ? 

Wide  question — if  we  had  to  take  cognizance  of  all  that  has 
been  written  respecting  it,  remarkable  as  it  has  been  always 
for  quantity  rather  than  carefulness,  and  full  of  confusion  be- 
tween Visible  and  Li visible :  even  the  article  of  the  Church  of 
England  being  ambiguous  in  its  first  clause  :  "  The  Visible 
Church  is  a  congregation  of  Faithful  men."  As  if  ever  it  had 
been  possible,  except  for  God,  to  see  Faith !  or  to  know  a 
Faithful  man  by  sight.  And  there  is  little  else  wiitten  oij 
this  question,  without  some  such  quick  confusion  of  the 
Visible  and  Invisible  Church  ; — needless  and  unaccountable 


lO  NOTES  ON  THE 

confusion.  For  evidently,  the  Church  which  is  composed  of 
Faithful  men,  is  the  one  ti'ue,  indivisible,  and  indiscernible 
Church,  built  on  the  foundation  of  Apostles  and  Prophets, 
Jesus  Christ  himself  being  the  chief  corner-stone.  It  includes 
all  who  Jiave  ever  fallen  asleep  in  Christ,  and  all  vet  iinborn, 
who  are  to  be  saved  in  Him  ;  its  Body  is  as  yet  imperfect ;  it 
will  not  be  perfected  till  the  last  saved  human  spirit  is  gath- 
ered to  its  God. 

A  man  becomes  a  member  of  this  Church  only  by  believing 
in  Christ  with  all  his  heart ;  nor  is  he  positively  recognizable 
for  a  member  of  it,  when  he  has  become  so,  by  any  one  but 
God,  not  even  by  himself.  Nevertheless,  there  are  certain 
signs  by  which  Christ's  sheep  may  be  guessed  at.  Not  by 
their  being  in  any  definite  Fold — for  many  are  lost  sheep  at 
times :  but  by  their  sheep-like  behavior ;  and  a  great  many 
are  indeed  sheep  which,  on  the  far  mountain  side,  in  theu* 
peacefulness,  we  take  for  stones.  To  themselves,  the  best 
proof  of  their  being  Christ's  sheep  is  to  find  themselves  on 
Christ's  shoulders  ;  and,  between  them,  there  are  certain  sym- 
pathies (expressed  in  the  Apostles'  Creed  by  the  term  "  com- 
munion of  Saints "),  by  which  they  may  in  a  sort  recognise 
each  other,  and  so  become  verily  visible  to  each  other  for 
mutual  comfort. 

2.  The  Limits  of  the  Visible  Church,  or  of  the  Church  in 
the  Second  Scriptural  Sense,  ai'e  not  so  easy  to  define ;  they 
are  awkward  questions,  these,  of  stake-nets.  It  has  been  in- 
geniously and  plausibly  endeavored  to  make  Baptism  a  sign 
of  admission  into  the  Visible  Church,  but  absurdl}'  enough  ; 
for  we  know  that  half  the  baptized  people  in  the  world  are 
very  visible  rogues,  believing  neither  in  God  nor  devil ;  and 
it  is  flat  blasphemy  to  call  these  Visible  Christians  ;  we  also 
know  that  the  Holy  Ghost  was  sometimes  given  before  Bap- 
tism,* and  it  would  be  absurdity  to  call  a  man  on  w^hom  the 
Holy  Ghost  had  fallen,  an  Invisible  Christian.  The  only 
rational  distinction  is  that  which  practically,  tliough  not  jjro- 
fessedly,  we  always  assume.  If  we  hear  a  man  profess  him- 
self a  believer  in  God  and  in  Christ,  and  detect  him  in  no 
•  Acts  X.  44. 


CONSTRUCTION  OF  SHEEPF0LD8.  11 

glaring  and  wilful  violation  of  God's  law,  we  speak  of  him 
as  a  Christian  ;  and  on  the  other  hand,  if  we  hear  him  or  see 
him  denying  Christ,  either  in  his  words  or  conduct,  we  tacitly 
assume  him  not  to  be  a  Christian.  A  mawkish  charity  pre- 
vents us  from  outspeaking  in  this  matter,  and  from  earnestly 
endeavoring  to  discern  who  are  Christians  and  who  are  not ; 
and  this  I  hold  *  to  be  one  of  the  chief  sins  of  the  Church  in 
the  present  day  ;  for  thus  wicked  men  are  put  to  no  shame  ; 
and  better  men  are  encouraged  in  their  failings,  or  caused  to 
hesitate  in  their  virtues,  by  the  example  of  those  whom,  in 
false  charity,  they  choose  to  call  Christians.  Now,  it  being 
granted  that  it  is  impossible  to  know,  determinedly,  who  are 
Christians  indeed,  that  is  no  reason  for  utter  negligence  in 
separating  the  nominal,  apparent,  or  possible  Christian  from 
the  professed  Pagan  or  enemy  of  God.  We  spend  much 
time  in  arguing  about  efficacy  of  sacraments  and  such  other 
mysteries  ;  but  we  do  not  act  upon  the  very  certain  tests 
which  are  clear  and  visible.  We  know  that  Christ's  people 
are  not  thieves — not  liars — not  busybodies — not  dishonest — 
not  avaricious — not  wasteful — not  cruel.  Let  us  then  get 
ourselves  well  clear  of  thieves — liars — wasteful  peojDle — avari- 

*  Let  not  the  reader  be  displeased  with  me  for  these  short  and  appar- 
ently insolent  statements  of  opinion.  I  am  not  writing  insolently,  but 
as  shortly  and  clearly  as  I  can  ;  and  when  I  seriously  believe  a  thing,  I 
say  so  in  a  few  words,  leaving  the  reader  to  determine  what  my  belief 
is  worth.  But  I  do  not  choose  to  temper  down  every  expression  of  per- 
sonal opinion  into  courteous  generalities,  and  so  lose  space,  and  time, 
and  intelligibility  at  once.  We  are  utterly  oppressed  in  these  days  by 
our  courtesies,  and  considerations,  and  compliances,  and  proprieties. 
Forgive  me  them,  this  once,  or  rather  let  us  all  forgive  them  to  each 
other,  and  learn  to  speak  plainly  first,  and,  if  it  may  be,  gracefully  after- 
wards ;  and  not  only  to  speak,  but  to  stand  by  what  we  have  spoken. 
One  of  my  Oxford  friends  heard,  the  other  day,  that  I  was  employed  on 
these  notes,  and  forthwith  wrote  to  me,  in  a  panic,  not  to  put  my  name 
to  them,  for  fear  I  should  "  compromise  myself."  I  think  we  are  most 
of  us  compromised  to  some  extent  already,  when  England  has  sent  a 
Roman  Ciitholio  minister  to  the  second  city  in  Italy,  and  remains  herself 
for  a  week  without  any  government,  because  her  chief  men  cannot  agree 
upon  the  position  which  a  Popish  cardinal  is  to  have  leave  to  occupy  la 
London. 


12  NOTES  ON  THE 

cious  people — cheating  people — people  who  do  not  pay  their 
debts.  Let  us  assure  them  that  the}',  at  least,  do  not  belong 
to  the  Visible  Church  ;  and  having  thus  got  that  Church  into 
decent  shape  and  cohesion,  it  will  be  time  to  think  of  drawing 
the  stake-nets  closer. 

I  hold  it  for  a  law,  palpable  to  common  sense,  and  which 
nothing  but  the  cowardice  and  faithlessness  of  the  Church 
prevents  it  from  putting  in  practice,  that  the  conviction  of 
any  dislionorable  conduct  or  wilful  crime,  of  any  fraud,  false- 
hood, cruelty,  or  violence,  should  be  ground  for  the  excom- 
munication of  any  man  : — for  his  publicly  declared  separation 
from  the  acknov/ledged  body  of  the  Visible  Churqh:  and 
that  he  should  not  be  received  again  therein  without  public 
confession  of  his  crime  and  declaration  of  his  repentance.  If 
this  were  vigorously  enforced,  we  should  soon  have  greater 
purity  of  life  in  the  world,  and  fewer  discussions  about  high 
and  low  churches.  But  before  we  can  obtain  any  idea  of  the 
manner  in  which  such  law  could  be  enforced,  we  have  to  con- 
sider the  second  question,  respecting  the  Authority  of  the 
Church.  Now  Authority  is  twofold  :  to  declare  doctrine 
and  to  enforce  discipline  ;  and  we  have  to  inquire,  therefore, 
in  each  kind, — 

3.  What  is  the  authority  of  Ihe  Invisible  Church  ?  evidently, 
in  matters  of  doctrine,  all  members  of  the  Invisible  Church 
must  have  been,  and  must  ever  be,  at  the  time  of  their  deaths, 
right  in  the  points  essential  to  Salvation.  But,  (A.)  we  cannot  tell 
who  are  members  of  the  Invisible  Church. 

(B. )  We  cannot  collect  evidence  from  deathbeds  in  a  clearly 
stated  form. 

(C.)  We  can  collect  evidence,  in  any  form,  only  from  some 
one  or  two  out  of  every  sealed  thousand  of  the  Invisible 
Church.  Elijah  thought  he  Avas  alone  in  Israel ;  and  yet  there 
were  seven  thousand  invisible  ones  around  him.  Grant  that 
we  had  Elijah's  intelligence  ;  and  we  could  only  calculate  on 
collecting  the  y^Vo^^^  P^^**-  ^f  the  evidence  or  opinions  of  the 
part  of  the  Invisible  Church  living  on  earth  at  a  given  mo- 
ment ;  that  is  to  say,  the  seven-miUionth  or  trillionth  of  its 
collective  evidence.    It  is  very  cleai",  therefore,  we  cannot  hope 


CONSTRUCTION  OF  SIIEEPFOLDS.  13 

to  get  lid  of  the  contradictory  opinions,  and  keep  the  consist- 
ent ones,  by  a  general  equation.  But,  it  has  been  said  there 
are  no  contradictory  opinions  ;  the  Church  is  infallible.  There 
was  some  talk  about  the  infallibility  of  the  Church,  if  I  recol- 
lect right,  in  that  letter  of  Mr.  Bennett's  to  the  Bishop  of  Lon- 
don. If  any  Church  be  infallible,  it  is  assuredly  the  Invisible 
Church,  or  body  of  Christ ;  and  infallible  in  the  main  sense  it 
must  of  course  be  by  its  definition.  An  Elect  person  must  be 
saved  and  therefore  cannot  eventually  be  deceived  on  essen- 
tial points  ;  so  that  Christ  says  of  the  deception  of  such,  "If  it 
were  possible"  implying  it  to  be  impossible.  Therefore,  as  we 
said,  if  one  could  get  rid  of  the  variable  opinions  of  the  mem- 
bers of  the  Invisible  Church,  the  constant  opinions  would 
assuredly  be  authoritative  :  but  for  the  three  reasons  above 
stated,  we  cannot  get  at  their  constant  opinions  :  and  as  for 
the  feelings  and  thoughts  which  they  daily  experience  or  ex- 
press, the  question  of  Infallibilit}' — which  is  practical  only  in 
this  benring — is  soon  settled.  Observe  St.  Paul,  and  the  rest 
of  the  Apostles,  write  nearly  all  their  epistles  to  the  Invisible 
Church: — Those  epistles  are  headed, — Romans,  "To  the  be- 
loved of  God,  called  to  be  saints  ; "  1  Corinthians,  "  To  them 
that  are  sanctified  in  Christ  Jesus ;"  2  Corinthians,  "To  the 
saints  in  all  Achaia  ; "  Ephesians,  "  To  the  saints  which  are  at 
Ephesus,  and  to  the  faithful  in  Christ  Jesus  ; "  Philippians,  "To 
all  the  saints  which  are  at  Philippi ;"  Colossians,  "  To  the  saints 
and  faithful  brethren  which  are  at  Colosse  ; "  1  and  2  Thessa- 
lonians,  "To  the  Church  of  the  Thessalonians,  which  is  in  God 
the  Father,  and  the  Lord  Jesus;"  1  and  2  Timoth}-,  "To  his 
own  son  in  the  faith  ; "  Titus,  to  the  same  ;  1  Peter,  "  To  the 
Strangers,  Elect  according  to  the  foreknowledge  of  God  ; " 
2  Peter,  "To  them  that  have  obtained  like  precious  faith 
with  us ; "  2  John,  "  To  the  Elect  lady  ; "  Jude,  "  To  them 
that  are  sanctified  by  God  the  Father,  and  preseiwed  in  Jesus 
Christ  and  called." 

There  are  thus  fifteen  epistles,  expressly  directed  to  the 
members  of  the  Invisible  Church.  Philemon  and  Hebrews, 
and  1  and  3  John,  are  evidently  also  so  written,  though  not 
so  expressly  inscribed.     That  of  James,  and  that  to  the  Gala- 


14:  NOTES  ON  THE 

tians,  are  as  evidently  to  the  Visible  Church :  the  one  being 
general,  and  the. other  to  persons  "removed  from  Him  that 
called  them."  Missing  out,  therefore,  these  two  epistles,  but 
including  Christ's  words  to  His  disciples,  we  find  in  the  Script- 
ural addresses  to  members  of  the  Invisible  Church,  fourteen, 
if  not  more,  direct  injunctions  '•  not  to  be  deceived."*  So 
much  for  the  "  Infallibility  of  the  Church." 

Now,  one  could  put  up  with  Puseyism  more  patiently,  if  its 
fallacies  ai'ose  merely  from  peculiar  temperaments  j'ielding  to 
peculiar  temptations.  But  its  bold  refusals  to  read  plain 
English  ;  its  elaborate  adjustments  of  tight  bandages  over  its 
own  eyes,  as  wholesome  preparation  for  a  walk  among  traps 
and  pitfalls  ;  its  daring  trustfulness  in  its  own  clairvoj-ance  all 
the  time,  and  declarations  that  every  pit  it  falls  into  is  a  sev- 
enth heaven  ;  and  that  it  is  pleasant  and  profitable  to  break 
its  legs  ; — with  all  this  it  is  difficult  to  have  patience.  One 
thinks  of  the  highwayman  with  his  eyes  shut,  in  the  Arabian 
Nights ;  and  wondera  whether  any  kind  of  scourging  would 
prevail  upon  the  Anglican  highwayman  to  open  "first  one  and 
then  the  other." 

4.  So  much,  then,  I  repeat  for  the  infallibility  of  the  /nvis- 
ible  Church,  and  for  its  consequent  authority.  Now,  if  we 
want  to  ascertain  what  infallibility  and  authority  there  is  in 
the  Visible  Church,  we  have  to  alloy  the  small  wisdom  and 
the  light  weight  of  Invisible  Christians,  with  large  per-centage 
of  the  false  wisdom  and  contrai-y  weight  of  Undetected  Anti- 
Christians.  Which  alloy  makes  up  the  current  coin  of  opin- 
ions in  the  Visible  Church,  having  such  value  as  we  may 
choose — its  nature  being  properly  assayed — to  attach  to  it. 

There  is,  therefore,  in  matters  of  doctrine,  no  such  thing  as 
the  Authority  of  the  Church.  We  might  as  well  talk  of  the 
authority  of  the  morning  cloud.  There  may  be  light  in  it, 
but  the  light  is  not  of  it ;  and  it  diminishes  the  light  that  it 
gets  ;  and  lets  less  of  it  through  than  it  receives,  Christ  being 
its  sun.     Or,  we  might  as  well  talk  of  the  authority  of  a  flock 

*  Matt.  xxiv.  4;  Mark  xiii.  5;  Luke  xxi.  8;  1  Cor.  iii.  18,  vi.  9,  xv. 
3.3  ;  Eph.  iv.  14,  v.  6 ;  Col.  ii.  8 ;  2  Thess.  ii.  3 ;  Heb.  iu.  13  ;  1  John  L 
8,  iii.  7  ;  2  Joha  7,  8. 


CONSTRUCTION  OF  SHEEPFOLDS.  15 

of  sheep — for  the  Church  is  a  body  to  be  taught  and  fed,  not 
to  teach  and  feed :  and  of  all  sheep  that  are  fed  on  the  earth, 
Christ's  Sheep  are  the  most  simple  (the  children  of  this  gen- 
eration are  wiser) :  always  losing  themselves  ;  doing  little  else 
ill  this  world  but  lose  themselves  ; — never  finding  themselves  ; 
always  found  by  Some  One  else  ;  getting  perpetually  into 
sloughs,  and  snows,  and  bramble  thickets,  like  to  die  there, 
but  for  their  Shepherd,  who  is  for  ever  finding  them  and  bear- 
ing them  back,  with  torn  fleeces  and  eyes  full  of  fear. 

This,  then,  being  the  No-Authority  of  the  Church  in  mat- 
ter of  Doctrine,  what  Authority  has  it  in  matters  of  Disci- 
pline ? 

Much,  every  way.  The  sheep  have  natural  and  wholesome 
power  (however  far  scattered  they  may  be  from  their  proper 
fold)  of  getting  together  in  orderly  knots ;  following  each 
other  on  trodden  sheepwalks,  and  holding  their  heads  all  one 
way  when  they  see  strange  dogs  coming  ;  as  well  as  of  casting 
out  of  their  company  any  whom  they  see  reason  to  suspect  of 
not  being  right  sheep,  and  being  among  them  for  no  good. 
All  which  things  must  be  done  as  the  time  and  place  require, 
and  by  common  consent.  A  path  may  be  good  at  one  time  of 
day  which  is  bad  at  another,  or  after  a  change  of  wind  ;  and  a 
position  may  be  very  good  for  sudden  defence,  which  would 
be  very  stiff  and  awkward  for  feeding  in.  And  common  con- 
sent must  often  be  of  such  and  such  a  company  on  this  or  that 
hillside,  in  this  or  that  particular  danger,  — not  of  all  the  sheep 
in  the  world  :  and  the  consent  may  either  be  literally  com- 
mon, and  expressed  in  assembly,  or  it  may  be  to  appoint  offi- 
cers over  the  rest,  with  such  and  such  trusts  of  the  common 
authority,  to  be  used  for  the  common  advantage.  Conviction 
of  crimes,  and  excommunication,  for  instance,  could  neither  be 
effected  except  before,  or  by  means  of,  officers  of  some  ap- 
pointed authority. 

5.  This,  then,  brings  us  to  our  fifth  question.  What  is  the 
Authority  of  the  Clergy  over  the  Church  ? 

The  first  clause  of  the  question  must  evidently  be, — Who 
are  the  Clergy?  and  it  is  not  easy  to  answer  this  without 
begging  the  rest  of  the  question. 


16  NOTES  ON  TUB 

For  instance,  I  think  I  can  hear  certain  people  answeiing 
That  the  Clergy  are  folk  of  three  kinds, — Bishops,  who  over- 
look the  Church  ;  Priests,  who  sacrifice  for  the  Church  ; 
Deacons,  who  minister  to  the  Church  :  thus  assuming  in  their 
answer,  that  the  Church  is  to  be  sacrificed ybr,  and  that  people 
cannot  overlook  and  minister  to  her  at  the  same  time  ;  which 
is  going  much  too  fast.  I  think,  however,  if  we  define  the 
Clergy  to  be  the  "  Spiritual  Officers  of  the  Church," — meaning, 
by  Officers,  merely  People  in  office, — we  shall  have  a  title  safe 
enough  and  general  enough  to  begin  with,  and  corresponding 
too,  pretty  well,  with  St.  Paul's  general  expression  Trpdia-Ta^ivoL, 
in  Eom.  xii.  8,  and  1  Thess.  v.  13. 

Now,  respecting  these  Spiritual  Officers,  or  office-bearers,  we 
have  to  inquire,  first,  What  their  Office  or  Authority  is,  or 
should  be  ;  secondly.  Who  gave,  or  should  give,  them  that 
Authority  ?  That  is  to  say,  first,  "NVliat  is,  or  should  be  the 
nature  of  their  office  ;  and  secondly.  What  the  extent  or  force 
of  their  authority  in  it  ?  for  this  last  depends  mainly  on  its 
derivation. 

First,  then.  What  should  be  the  offices,  and  of  what  kind 
should  be  the  authoritj'  of  the  Clergy  ? 

I  have  hitherto  referred  to  the  Bible  for  an  answer  to  every 
question.  I  do  so  again  ;  and  behold,  the  Bible  gives  me  no 
answer.  I  defy  you  to  answer  me  from  the  Bible.  You  can 
only  guess,  and  dimly  conjecture,  what  the  offices  of  the 
Clei'gy  we7'e  in  the  first  centurj*.  You  cannot  show  me  a  sin- 
gle command  as  to  what  they  shall  be.  Strange,  this  :  the 
Bible  give  no  answer  to  so  apparently  important  a  question  ! 
God  surely  would  not  have  left  His  word  without  an  answer 
to  anything  His  children  ought  to  ask.  Surely  it  must  be  a 
ridiculous  question — a  question  we  ought  never  to  have  put, 
or  thought  of  putting.  Let  us  think  of  it  again  a  little.  To 
be  sure, — it  is  a  ridiculous  question,  and  we  should  be  ashamed 
of  ourselves  for  having  put  it: — What  should  be  the  offices 
of  the  Clergy  ?  That  is  to  say.  What  are  the  possible  spiritual 
necessities  which  at  any  time  may  arise  in  the  Church,  and  by 
what  means  and  men  are  they  to  be  supplied  ; — evidently  an 
infinite  question.     Different  kinds  of  necessities  must  be  met 


CONSTRUCTION  OF  SHEEPFOLDS.  17 

"by  different  authorities,  constituted  as  the  necessities  arise. 
Robinson  Crusoe,  in  his  island,  wants  no  Bishop,  and  makes  a 
thunderstorm  do  for  an  EvaugeHst.  The  University  of  Oxford 
would  be  ill  off  without  its  Bishop  ;  but  wants  an  Evangelist 
besides  ;  and  that  forthwith.  The  authority  which  the  Vau- 
dois  shepherds  need,  is  of  Barnabas,  the  son  of  Consolation  ; 
the  authority  which  the  City  of  London  needs,  is  of  James, 
the  sou  of  Thunder.  Let  us  then  alter  the  form  of  our  ques- 
tion, and  put  it  to  the  Bible  thus  ;  What  ai-e  the  necessities 
most  likely  to  arise  in  the  Chui-ch  ;  and  may  they  be  best  met 
by  different  men,  or  in  great  part  by  the  same  men  acting  in 
different  capacities  ?  and  are  the  names  attached  to  their  offices 
of  any  consequence  ?  Ah,  the  Bible  answers  now,  and  that 
loudly.  The  Church  is  built  on  the  Foundation  of  the  Apostles 
and  Prophets,  Jesus  Christ  himself  being  the  corner-stone. 
Well ;  We  cannot  have  two  foundations,  so  we  can  have  no 
more  Apostles  or  Pi*oj)hets  : — then,  as  for  the  other  needs  of 
the  Church  in  its  edifying  upon  this  foundation,  thei'e  are  all 
manner  of  things  to  be  done  daily  ; — rebukes  to  be  given  ; 
comfort  to  be  brought ;  Scripture  to  be  explained  ;  warning  to 
be  enforced  ;  threatenings  to  be  executed  ;  charities  to  be  ad- 
ministered ;  and  the  men  who  do  these  things  are  called,  and 
call  themselves,  with  absolute  indifference,  Deacons,  Bishops, 
Elders,  Evangelists,  according  to  what  they  are  doing  at  the 
time  of  speaking.  St.  Paul  almost  always  calls  himself  a  dea- 
con, St.  Peter  calls  himself  an  elder,  1  Pet.  v.  1,  and  Timothy, 
generally  understood  to  be  addressed  as  a  bishop,  is  called  a 
deacon  in  1  Tim.  iv.  6 — forbidden  to  rebuke  an  elder,  in  v.  1, 
and  exhorted  to  do  the  work  of  an  evangelist,  in  2  Tim.  iv.  5. 
But  there  is  one  thing  which,  as  officers,  or  as  separate  from 
the  rest  of  the  flock,  they  never  call  themselves, — which  it 
would  have  been  impossible,  as  so  separate,  they  ever  should 
have  called  themselves  ;  that  is — Priests. 

It  would  have  been  just  as  possible  for  the  Clergy  of  the 
early  Church  to  call  themselves  Levites,  as  to  call  themselves 
(ex  officio)  Priests.  The  whole  function  of  Priesthood  was, 
on  Christmas  morning,  at  once  and  forever  gathered  into  His 
Person  who  was  born  at  Bethlehem ;  and  thenceforward,  al] 
3 


18  NOTES   ON  THE 

who  are  united  with  Him,  and  who  with  Him  make  sacrifice 
of  themselves  ;  that  is  to  say,  all  members  of  the  Invisible 
Church,  become  at  the  instant  of  their  conversion,  Priests ; 
and  are  so  called  in  1  Pet.  ii.  5,  and  Rev.  i.  6,  and  xx.  6,  where, 
observe,  there  is  no  possibility  of  limiting  the  expression  to 
the  Clergy  ;  the  conditions  of  Priesthood  being  simply  having 
been  loved  by  Christ,  and  washed  in  His  blood.  The  blasphe- 
mous claim  on  the  part  of  the  Clergy  of  being  more  Priests 
than  the  godly  laity — that  is  to  say,  of  having  a  higher  Holi- 
ness than  the  Holiness  of  being  one  with  Christ, — is  alto- 
gether a  Romanist  heresy,  dragging  after  it,  or  having  its  or- 
igin in,  the  other  heresies  respecting  the  sacrificial  power  of 
the  Church  officer,  and  his  repeating  the  oblation  of  Christ, 
and  so  having  power  to  absolve  from  sin : — with  all  the  other 
endless  and  miserable  falsehoods  of  the  Papal  hierarchy ;  false- 
hoods for  which^  that  there  might  be  no  shadow  of  excuse,  it 
has  been  ordained  by  the  Holy  Spirit  that  no  Christian  minis- 
ter shall  once  call  himself  a  Priest  from  one  end  of  the  New 
Testament  to  the  other,  except  together  with  his  flock  ;  and 
so  far  from  the  idea  of  any  peculiar  sanctification,  belonging 
to  the  Clergy,  never  entering  the  apostles'  minds,  we  actually 
find  St.  Paul  defending  himself  against  the  possible  imputation 
of  inferiority  :  "If  anj'  man  trust  to  himself  that  he  is  Christ's, 
let  him  of  himself  think  this  again,  that,  as  he  is  Christ's,  even 
so  are  we  Christ's  "  (2  Cor.  x.  7).  As  for  the  unhappy  reten- 
tion of  the  term  Priest  in  our  English  Prayer-book,  so  long 
as  it  was  understood  to  mean  nothing  but  an  upper  order  of 
Church  officer,  licensed  to  tell  the  congregation  from  the  read- 
ing-desk, what  (for  the  rest)  they  might,  one  would  think, 
have  known  without  being  told, — that  "God  pardoneth  all 
them  that  truly  repent," — there  was  little  harm  in  it ;  but, 
nbw  that  this  order  of  Clergy  begins  to  presume  upon  a  title 
which,  if  it  mean  anything  at  all,  is  simply  short  for  Presbyter, 
and  has  no  more  to  do  with  the  Avord  Hiei-eus  than  with  the 
word  Levite,  it  is  time  that  some  order  should  be  taken  both 
with  the  book  and  the  Clergy.  For  instance,  in  that  danger- 
ous compound  of  halting  poetry  with  hoUow  Divinity,  called 
the  Lyra  Apostolica,  we  find  much  versification  on  the  sin  of 


CONSTRUCTION  OF  SHEEPFOLDS.  19 

Korah  and  his  company  :  with  suggested  parallel  between  the 
Christian  and  Levitical  Churches,  and  threatening  that  theue 
are  "Judgment  Fires,  for  high-voiced  Korahs  in  then- day." 
There  are  indeed  such  fires.  But  when  Moses  said,  "  a  Proph- 
et shall  the  Lord  raise  up  unto  you,  like  unto  me,"  did  he 
mean  the  writer  who  signs  y  in  the  Lyra  Apostolica  ?  The 
office  of  the  Lawgiver  and  Priest  is  now  for  ever  gathered  in- 
to One  Mediator  between  God  and  man  ;  and  they  are  guilty 
of  the  sin  of  Korah  who  blasphemously  would  associate  them- 
selves in  his  Mediatorship. 

As  for  the  passages  in  the  "  Ordering  of  Priests"  and  "Visi- 
tation of  the  Sick  "  respecting  Absolution,  they  are  evidently 
pure  Komanism,  and  might  as  well  not  be  there,  for  any  prac- 
tical effect  which  they  have  on  the  consciences  of  the  Luity  ; 
and  had  much  better  not  be  there,  as  regards  their  effect 
on  the  minds  of  the  Clergy.  It  is  indeed  true  that  Christ 
promised  absolving  power  to  His  Apostles  :  He  also  promised 
to  those  who  believed,  that  they  should  take  up  serpents,  and 
if  they  drank  any  deadly  thing,  it  should  not  hurt  them.  His 
words  were  fulfilled  litei'ally  ;  but  those  who  would  extend 
their  force  to  beyond  the  Apostolic  times,  most  extend  both 
pi'omises,  or  neither. 

Although,  however,  the  Protestant  laity  do  not  often  admit 
the  absolving  power  of  their  clergy,  they  are  but  too  apt  to 
yield,  in  some  sort,  to  the  impression  of  their  greater  sancti- 
fication  ;  and  from  this  instantly  results  the  unhappy  conse- 
quence that  the  sacred  character  of  the  Layman  himself  is 
forgotten,  and  his  own  Ministerial  duty  is  neglected.  Men 
not  in  office  in  the  Chui'ch  suppose  themselves,  on  that 
ground,  in  a  sort  unholy ;  and  that,  therefore,  they  may  sin 
with  more  excuse,  and  be  idle  or  impious  with  less  danger, 
than  the  Clergy  :  especially  they  consider  themselves  relieved 
from  all  ministerial  function,  and  as  permitted  to  devote  their 
whole  time  and  energy  to  the  business  of  this  world.  No 
mistake  can  possibly  be  greater.  Every  member  of  the 
Church  is  equally  bound  to  the  service  of  the  Head  of  the 
Church  ;  and  that  service  is  pre-eminently  the  saving  of  souls. 
There  is  not  a  moment  of  a  man's  active  life  in  which  he  may 


40  NOTES  ON  THE 

not  be  indirectly  preaching ;  and  throughout  a  great  part  ot 
his  life  he  ought  to  be  directly  preaching,  and  teaching  both 
strangers  and  friends  ;  his  children,  his  servants,  and  all  who 
in  any  way  are  put  under  him,  being  given  to  him  as  especial 
objects  of  his  ministration.  So  that  the  only  difference  be- 
tween a  Church,  officer  and  a  lay  member,  is  either  a  wider 
degree  of  authority  given  to  the  former,  as  apparently  a  wiser 
and  better  man,  or  a  special  appointment  to  some  office  more 
easily  discharged  by  one  person  than  by  many  :  as,  for  in- 
stance, the  serving  of  tables  by  the  deacons  ;  the  authorit}'  or 
appointment  being,  in  either  case,  commonly  signified  by  a 
marked  separation  from  the  rest  of  the  Church,  and  the  privi- 
lege or  power  *  of  being  maintained  by  the  rest  of  the  Church, 
without  being  forced  to  labor  with  his  hands  or  encumber 
himself  with  any  temporal  concerns. 

Now,  putting  out  of  question  the  serving  of  tables,  and 
other  such  duties,  resj)ecting  .which  there  is  no  debate,  we 
shall  find  the  offices  of  the  Clergy,  whatever  names  we  may 
choose  to  give  to  those  who  discharge  them,  falling  mainly 
into  two  great  heads  : — Teaching ;  including  doctrine,  warn- 
ing, and  comfoi't :  Discipline  ;  including  reproof  and  direct 
administration  of  punishment.  Either  of  which  functions 
would  naturally  become  vested  in  single  persons,  to  the  ex- 
clusion of  others,  as  a  mere  matter  of  convenience  :  whether 
those  persons  were  wiser  and  better  than  others  or  not :  and 
respecting  each  of  which,  and  the  authority  required  for  its 
fitting  discharge,  a  short  inquiry  must  be  separately  made. 

I.  Teaching. — It  appears  natural  and  wise  that  certain  men 
should  be  set  apart  from  the  rest  of  the  Church  that  they  may 
make  Theology  the  study  of  their  hves  :  and  that  they  should 
be  thereto  instructed  specially  in  the  Hebrew  and  Greek 
tongues  ;  and  have  entire  leisure  granted  them  for  the  study 
of  the  Scriptures,  and  for  obtaining  general  knowledge  of  the 
grounds  of  Faith,  and  best  modes  of  its  defence  against  all 
heretics :  and  it  seems  evidently  right  also,  that  with  this 
Scholastic  duty  should  be  joined  the  Pastoral  duty  of  constant 
visitation  and  exhortation  to  the   people  ;   foi',   clearly,   the 

*  iiovffia,  in  1  Cor.  ix.  12.     2  Thess   iii.  9. 


CONSTRUCTION  OF  SHEEPFOLDS.  21 

Bible,  and  the  truths  of  Divinity  in  general,  can  only  be  un- 
derstood rightly  in  their  practical  application  ;  and  clearly, 
also,  a  man  spending  his  time  constantly  in  spiritual  ministra- 
tions, must  be  better  able,  on  any  given  occasion,  to  deal 
powerfully  with  the  human  heart  than  one  unpractised  in  such 
matters.  The  unity  of  Knowledge  and  Love,  both  devoted 
altogether  to  the  service  of  Christ  and  his  Church,  marks  the 
true  Christian  Minister  ;  who  I  believe,  whenever  he  has  ex- 
isted, has  never  failed  to  receive  due  and  fitting  reverence 
from  all  men, — of  whatever  character  or  opinion  ;  and  I  believe 
that  if  all  those  who  profess  to  be  such,  were  such  indeed, 
there  would  never  be  question  of  their  authority  more. 

But,  whatever  influence  they  may  have  over  the  Church, 
their  authority  never  supersedes  that  of  either  the  intellect  or 
the  conscience  of  the  simplest  of  its  lay  members.  They  can 
assist  those  members  in  the  search  for  truth,  or  comfort  their 
overworn  and  doubtful  minds ;  they  can  even  assure  them 
that  they  are  in  the  way  of  truth,  or  that  pardon  is  within 
their  reach  :  but  they  can  neither  manifest  the  truth  nor  grant 
the  pardon.  Truth  is  to  be  discovered,  and  Pardon  to  be  won 
for  every  man  by  himself.  This  is  evident  from  innumerable 
texts  of  Scripture,  but  chiefly  from  those  which  exhort  every 
man  to  seek  after  Truth,  and  which  connect  knowing  with  do- 
ing. We  are  to  seek  after  knowledge  as  silver,  and  search 
for  her  as  for  hid  treasures  ;  therefore,  from  every  man  she 
must  be  naturally  hid,  and  the  discovery  of  her  is  to  be  the 
reward  only  of  personal  search.  The  kingdom  of  God  is  as 
treasure  hid  in  a  field  ;  and  of  those  who  profess  to  helj)  us 
to  seek  for  it,  we  are  not  to  put  confidence  in  those  who  say, 
— Here  is  the  treasure,  we  have  found  it,  and  have  it,  and  will 
give  you  some  of  it  ;  but  to  those  who  say, — We  thiuk  that 
is  a  good  place  to  dig,  and  you  will  dig  most  easily  in  such 
and  such  a  way. 

Farther,  it  has  been  promised  that  if  such  earnest  search  be 
made.  Truth  shall  be  discovered  :  as  much  truth,  that  is,  as  is 
necessary  for  the  person  seeking.  These,  therefore,  I  hold, 
for  two  fundamental  piinciples  of  religion, — that,  without 
seeking,  truth  cannot  be  known  at  all  ;  and  that,  by  seeking, 


22  NOTES  ON  THE 

it  may  be  discovered  by  the  simplest.  I  say,  without  seeking 
it  cannot  be  known  at  all.  It  can  neither  be  declared  from 
pulpits,  nor  set  down  in  Articles,  nor  in  any  wise  "  pre- 
pared and  sold  "  in  packages,  ready  for  use.  Truth  must  be 
gTound  for  every  man  by  himself  out  of  its  husk,  Avith  such 
help  as  he  can  get,  indeed,  but  not  without  stei'n  labor  of 
his  own.  In  what  science  is  knowledge  to  be  had  cheap  ?  or 
truth  to  be  told  over  a  velvet  cushion,  in  half  an  houi-'s  talk 
every  seventh  day  ?  Can  you  learn  chemistry  so  ? — zoology  ? — 
anatomy  ?  and  do  you  expect  to  penetrate  the  secret  of  all  se- 
crets, and  to  know  that  whose  price  is  above  rubies  ;  and  of 
which  the  depth  saith, — It  is  not  in  me,  in  so  easy  fashion  ? 
There  are  doubts  in  this  matter  which  evil  spirits  darken 
with  their  wings,  and  that  is  true  of  all  such  doubts  which 
we  were  told  long  ago — they  can  "be  ended  by  action 
alone."* 

As  surely  as  we  live,  this  truth  of  truths  can  only  so  be  dis- 
cerned :  to  those  who  act  on  what  they  know,  more  shall  be 
revealed  ;  and  thus,  if  any  man  will  do  His  will,  he  shall  know 
the  doctrine  whether  it  be  of  God,  Any  man  : — not  the  man 
who  has  most  means  of  knowing,  who  has  the  subtlest  brains, 
or  sits  under  the  most  orthodox  preacher,  or  has  his  library 
fullest  of  most  orthodox  books — but  the  man  who  strives  to 
know,  who  takes  God  at  His  word,  and  sets  himself  to  dig  up 
the  heavenly  mystery,  roots  and  all,  before  sunset,  and  the 
night  come,  when  no  man  can  work.  Beside  such  a  man,  God 
stands  in  more  and  more  visible  presence  as  he  toils,  and 
teaches  him  that  which  no  preacher  can  teach — no  earthly  au- 

*  (Carlyle,  Past  and  Present,  Chap.  xi. )  Can  anything  he  more  strik- 
ing than  the  repeated  warnings  of  St.  Paul  against  strife  of  words  ;  and 
his  distinct  setting  forth  of  Action  as  the  only  true  means  of  attaining 
knowledge  of  the  truth,  and  the  only  sign  of  men's  possessing  the  true 
faitli?  Compare  1  Timothy  vi.  4,20,  (the  hitter  verse  especially,  in  con- 
nection with  the  previous  three,)  and  2  Timothy  ii.  14,  19,  22,  23.  trac- 
ing the  connection  here  also  ;  add  Titus  i.  10,  14,  16,  noting  "m  wo"ks 
they  deny  him,"  and  Titus  iii.  8,  9,  "  affirm  constantly  that  they  he 
careful  to  maintain  good  works ;  hut  avoid  foolish  questions  ; "  and 
finally,  1  Timothy  i.  4 — 7 :  a  passage  which  seems  to  have  been  espe' 
cially  written  for  thesd  times. 


CONSTRUCTION  OF  SHEEPFOLDS.  23 

thority  gainsay.     By  such  a  man,  the  preacher  must  himself 
be  judged. 

Doubt  you  this  ?  There  is  nothing  more  certain  nor  clear 
throughout  the  Bible  :  the  Apostles  themselves  appeal  con- 
stantly to  their  flocks,  and  actually  claim  judgment  from 
them,  as  deserving  it,  and  having  a  right  to  it,  rather  than 
discouraging  it.  But,  first  notice  the  way  in  which  the  dis- 
covery of  truth  is  spoken  of  in  the  Old  Testament :  "  Evil 
men  understand  not  judgment  ;  but  they  that  seek  the  Lord 
understand  all  tilings,"  Proverbs  xxviii.  5.  God  overthroweth, 
not  merely  the  transgressor  or  the  wicked,  but  even  "the 
words  of  the  transgressor-,"  Proverbs  xxii.  12,  and  "  the  coun- 
sel of  the  wicked,"  Job  v.  13,  xxi.  16  ;  observe  again,  in  Prov- 
erbs xxiv.  4,  "  My  son,  eat  thou  honey,  because  it  is  good — 
so  shall  the  knowledge  of  wisdom  be  unto  thy  soul,  when  thou 
hast  found  it,  there  shall  be  a  reward  ;  "  and  again,  "  What 
man  is  he  that  feareth  the  Lord?  him  shall  he  teach  in  the 
way  that  he  shall  choose  ;  "  so  -Job  xxxii.  8,  and  multitudes  of 
places  more  ;  and  then,  with  all  these  places,  which  express 
the  definite  and  personal  operation  of  the  Spirit  of  God  on 
every  one  of  His  people,  compare  the  place  in  Isaiah,  which 
speaks  of  the  contrary  of  this  human  teaching :  a  passage 
which  seems  as  if  it  had  been  written  for  this  very  day  and 
hour.  "Because  their  fear  towards  me  is  taught  by  thepj'e- 
cept  of  men  ;  therefore,  behold  the  wisdom  of  their  wise  men 
shall  perish,  and  the  understanding  of  their  pmdent  men  shall 
be  hid,"  (xxix.  13,  14.)  Then  take  the  New  Testament,  and 
observe  how  St.  Paul  himself  speaks  of  the  Romans,  even  as 
hardly  needing  his  epistle,  but  able  to  admonish  one  another ; 
"  Nevertheless,  brethren,  I  have  written  the  more  boldly  unto  you 
in  some  sort,  as  putting  you  in  mind."  (xv.  15.)  Any  one,  we 
should  have  thought,  might  have  done  as  much  as  this,  and 
yet  St.  Paul  increases  the  modesty  of  it  as  he  goes  on  ;  for  he 
claims  the  right  of  doing  as  much  as  this,  only  "  because  of 
the  grace  given  to  me  of  God,  that  I  should  be  the  minister 
of  Jesus  Christ  to  the  Gentiles."  Then  compare  2  Cor.  v.  11, 
where  he  appeals  to  the  consciences  of  the  people  for  the 
manifestation  of  his  having  done  his  duty  ;  and  observe  in 


24  NOTES  ON  THE 

verse  21  of  that,  and  1  of  the  next  chapter,  the  "  pray  "  and 
"beseech,"  not  "command  ;"  and  again,  in  chapter  vi.  verse 
4,  "  approving  ourselves  as  the  ministers  of  God."  But  the 
most  remarkable  passage  of  all  is  2  Cor.  iii.  1,  whence  it  ap- 
pears that  the  churches  were  actually  in  the  habit  of  giving 
letters  of  recommendation  to  their  ministers  ;  and  St.  Paul 
dispenses  with  such  letters,  not  by  virtue  of  his  Apostolic 
authority,  but  because  the  power  of  his  preaching  was  enough 
manifested  in  the  Corinthians  themselves.  And  these  passages 
are  all  the  more  forcible,  because  if  in  any  of  them  St.  Paul 
had  claimed  absolute  authority  over  the  Church  as  a  teacher, 
it  was  no  more  than  we  should  have  expected  him  to  claim, 
nor  could  his  doing  so  have  in  anywise  justified  a  successor 
in  the  same  claim.  But  now  that  he  has  not  claimed  it — who, 
following  him,  shall  dare  to  claim  it  ?  And  the  consideration 
of  the  necessity  of  joining  expressions  of  the  most  exemplaiy 
humility,  which  were  to  be  the  example  of  succeeding  minis- 
ters, with  such  assertion  of  Divine  authority  as  should  secui'e 
acceptance  for  the  epistle  itself  in  the  sacred  canon,  sufficiently 
accounts  for  the  apparent  inconsistencies  which  occur  in  2 
Thess.  iii.  14,  and  other  such  texts. 

So  much,  then,  for  the  authority  of  the  Clergy  in  matters 
of  Doctrine.  Next,  what  is  their  authority  in  matters  of  Dis- 
cipline. It  must  evidently  be  very  great,  even  if  it  were  de- 
rived from  the  people  alone,  and  merely  vested  in  the  clerical 
officers  as  the  executors  of  their  ecclesiastical  judgments,  and 
general  overseers  of  all  the  Church.  But  granting,  as  we  must 
presently,  the  minister  to  hold  office  directly  from  God,  his 
authority  of  discipline  becomes  very  great  indeed  ;  how  great, 
it  seems  to  me  most  difficult  to  determine,  because  I  do  not 
understand  what  St.  Paul  means  by  "  delivering  a  man  to  Satan 
for  the  destruction  of  the  flesh."  Leaving  this  question,  how- 
ever, as  much  too  hard  for  casual  examination,  it  seems  indis- 
putable that  the  authority  of  the  Ministers  or  court  of  ^Ministers 
should  extend  to  the  pronouncing  a  man  Excommunicate 
for  cei'tain  crimes  against  the  Church,  as  well  as  for  all  crimes 
punishable  by  ordinary  law.  There  ought,  I  think,  to  be  an 
ecclesiastical  code  of  laws ;  and  a  man  ought  to  have  jury  trial. 


CONSTRUCTION  OF  SIIEEPFOLDS.  25 

according  to  this  code,  before  an  ecclesiastical  judge  ;  in  which, 
if  he  were  found  guilty,  as  of  lying,  or  dishonesty,  or  cruelty, 
much  more  of  any  actually  committed  violent  crime,  he  should 
be  pronounced  Excommunicate  ;  refused  the  Sacrament  ;  and 
have  his  name  Avritten  in  some  public  place  as  an  excommuni- 
cate person  until  he  had  publicly  confessed  his  sin  and  be- 
sought pardon  of  God  for  it.  The  jury  should  always  be  of 
the  laity,  and  no  penalty  should  be  enforced  in  an  ecclesiasti- 
cal coui't  except  this  of  excommunication. 

This  proposal  may  sound  strange  to  many  persons  ;  but  as- 
suredly this,  if  not  much  more  than  this,  is  commanded  in 
Scripture,  first  in  the  (much  abused)  text,  '•  Tell  it  unto  the 
Church  ; "  and  most  clearly  in  1  Cor.  v,  11 — 13  ;  2  Thess.  iii. 
G  and  14  ;  1  Tim.  v.  8  and  20  ;  and  Titus  iii.  10 ;  from  which 
passages  we  also  know  the  two  proper  degrees  of  the  penalty. 
For  Christ  says,  Let  him  who  refuses  to  hear  the  Church,  "be 
unto  thee  as  an  lieathen  man  and  a  publican."  But  Christ 
ministered  to  the  heathen,  and  sat  at  meat  with  the  publican  ; 
only  always  with  declared  or  implied  expression  of  their  in- 
feriority ;  here,  therefore,  is  one  degree  of  excommunication 
for  persons  who  "offend  "their  brethren;  committing  some 
minor  fault  against  them  ;  and  who,  ha\ing  been  pronounced 
in  error  by  the  body  of  the  Church,  refuse  to  confess  their 
fault  or  repair  it ;  who  arc  then  to  be  no  longer  considered 
members  of  the  Church  ;  and  their  recovery  to  the  body  of  it 
is  to  be  sought  exactly  as  it  would  be  in  the  case  of  a  heathen. 
But  covetous  persons,  railers,  extortioners,  idolaters,  and 
those  guilty  of  other  gross  crimes,  are  to  be  entirely  cut  off 
from  the  company  of  the  believers  ;  and  we  are  not  so  much 
as  to  eat  with  them.  This  last  penalty,  however,  would  re- 
quire to  be  strictly  guarded,  that  it  might  not  be  abused  in 
the  infliction  of  it,  as  it  has  been  by  the  Romanists.  We  are 
not,  indeed,  to  eat  with  them,  but  we  may  exercise  all  Chris- 
tian charity  towards  them,  and  give  them  to  eat,  if  we  see 
them  in  hunger,  as  we  ought  to  all  our  enemies  ;  only  we  are 
to  consider  them  distinctly  as  our  enemies :  that  is  to  say, 
enemies  of  our  Master  Christ ;  and  servants  of  Satan. 

As  for  the  rank  or  name  of  the  officers  in  whom  the  authori- 


26  NOTES  ON  THE 

ties,  either  of  teaching  or  discipline,  are  to  be  vested,  they  are 
left  undetermined  by  Sci'ipture.  I  have  heard  it  said  by  men 
who  know  their  Bible  far  better  than  I,  that  careful  examina- 
tion may  detect  evidence  of  the  existejice  of  three  oixlers  of 
Clerg}'  in  the  Church.  Tliis  may  be ;  but  one  thing  is  veiy 
clear,  without  any  laborious  examination,  that  "  bishop  "  and 
"  elder  "  sometimes  mean  the  same  thing,  as,  indisputably,  in 
Titus  i.  5  and  7,  and  1  Pet.  v.  1  and  2,  and  that  the  oflSce  of 
the  bishop  or  overseer  was  one  of  considerably  less  impor- 
tance than  it  is  with  lis.  This  is  palpably  evident  from  1 
Timothy  iii.,  for  what  divine  among  us,  writing  of  episcopal 
proprieties,  would  think  of  saying  that  bishops  "  must  not  be 
given  to  wine,"  must  be  *'  no  strikers,"  and  must  not  be 
"  novices  ?  "  We  are  not  in  the  habit  of  making  bishops  of 
novices  in  these  days  ;  and  it  would  be  much  better  that,  like 
the  early  Church,  Ave  sometimes  ran  the  risk  of  doing  so  ;  for 
the  fact  is  we  have  not  bishops  enough — by  some  hundreds. 
The  idea  of  overseership  has  been  j)ractically  lost  sight  of,  its 
fulfilment  having  gradually  become  physically  imjiossible,  for 
want  of  more  bishops.  The  duty  of  a  bishop  is,  without 
doubt,  io  be  accessible  to  the  humblest  clerg^'men  of  his  dio- 
cese, and  to  desire  very  earnestly  that  all  of  them  should  be 
in  the  habit  of  referring  to  him  in  all  cases  of  difficulty  ;  if 
they  do  not  do  this  of  their  own  accord,  it  is  evidently  his 
duty  to  visit  them  ;  live  with  them  sometimes,  and  join  in 
their  ministrations  to  their  flocks,  so  as  to  know  exactly  the 
capacities,  and  habits  of  life  of  each  ;  and  if  any  of  them  com- 
plained of  this  or  that  difficulty  with  their  congregations,  the 
bishop  should  be  ready  to  go  down  to  help  them,  preach  for 
them,  write  general  epistles  to  {heir  people,  and  so  on  :  be- 
sides this,  he  should  of  course  be  watchful  of  their  errors — 
i-eady  to  hear  complaints  fi'oin  their  congregations  of  ineffi^ 
cieucy  or  aught  elstj  ;  besides  having  general  superintendence 
of  all  the  charitable  institutions  and  schools  in  his  diocese, 
and  good  knowledge  of  whatever  was  going  on  in  theological 
matters,  both  all  over  the  kingdom  and  on  the  continent. 
This  is  the  work  of  a  right  overseer ;  and  I  leave  the  reader 
to  calculate  how  many  additional  bishops — and  those  hard- 


CONSTRUCTION  OF  SHEEPFOLDS.  27 

working  men,  too — we  should  need  to  have  it  done  even  de- 
cently. Then  our  present  bishops  might  all  become  arch- 
bishops with  advantage,  and  have  general  authority  over  the 
rest.* 

As  to  the  mode  in  which  the  officers  of  the  Church  should 
be  elected  or  appointed,  I  do  not  feel  it  my  business  to  say 
anything  at  present,  nor  much  respecting  the  extent  of  their 
authority,  either  over  each  other  or  over  the  congregation, 
this  being  a  most  difficult  question,  the  right  solution  of 
which  evidently  lies  between  two  most  dangerous  extremes — 
insubordination  and  radicalism  on  one  hand,  and  ecclesiasti- 
cal tyranny  and  heresy  on  the  other :  of  the  two,  insubordi- 
nation is  far  the  least  to  be  dreaded — for  tliis  reason,  that 
nearly  all  real  Christians  are  more  on  the  Avatch  against  their 
pride  than  their  indolence,  and  would  sooner  obey  their  cler- 
gyman, if  possible,  than  contend  with  him  ;  while  the  very 
pride  they  suppose  conquered  often  returns  masked,  and 
causes  them  to  make  a  merit  of  their  humility  and  their  ab- 
stract obedience,  however  unreasonable  :  but  they  cannot  so 
easily  persuade  themselves  there  is  a  merit  in  abstract  disobe- 
dience. 

Ecclesiastical  tyranny  has,  for  the  most  part,  founded  itself 
on  the  idea  of  Vicarianism,  one  of  the  most  pestilent  of  the 
Romanist  theories,  and  most  plainly  denounced  in  Scripture. 
Of  this  I  have  a  word  or  tAvo  to  say  to  the  modern  "  Vicarian." 
All  powers  that  be  are  unquestionably  ordained  of  God  ;  so 

*  I  leave,  in  the  main  text,  the  abstract  question  of  the  fitness  of  Epis- 
copacy unapproached,  not  feeling  any  call  to  speak  of  it  at  length  at 
present  ;  all  that  I  feel  necessary  to  be  said  is,  that  bisliops  being 
gi-anled,  it  is  clear  that  we  have  too  few  to  do  their  work.  But  the  ar- 
gument from  the  practice  of  the  Primitive  Church  appears  to  me  to  be 
of  erroneous  weight, — nor  have  I  ever  heard  any  rational  plea  alleged 
against  Epi.<Jcopacy,  except  that,  like  other  things,  it  is  capable  of  abuse, 
and  had  sometimes  been  abused ;  and  as,  altogether  clearly  and  indis- 
putably, there  is  described  in  the  Bible  an  episcopal  office,  distinct 
from  the  merely  ministerial  one  ;  and,  apparently,  also  an  Episcopal 
officer  attached  to  each  church,  and  distinguished  in  the  Revelations  as 
an  Angel,  I  liold  the  resistance  of  the  .Scotch  Presbyterian  Church  to 
Episcopacy  to  be  unscriptural,  futile,  and  schismatic. 


28  NOTES  ON  THE 

that  they  that  resist  the  Power,  resist  the  ordinance  of  God. 
Therefore,  say  some  in  these  offices,  We,  being  ordained  of 
God,  and  having  our  credentials,  and  being  in  the  English 
Bible  called  ambassadors  for  God,  do,  in  a  sort,  represent 
God,  We  are  Vicars  of  Christ,  and  stand  on  earth  in  place 
of  Chi'ist.     I  have  heard  this  said  by  Protestant  clergymen. 

Now  the  word  ambassador  has  a  peculiar  ambiguity  about 
it,  owing  to  its  use  in  modem  political  affairs ;  and  these 
clergymen  assume  that  the  word,  as  used  by  St.  Paul,  means 
an  Ambassador  Plenipotentiary  ;  representative  of  his  King, 
and  capable  of  acting  for  his  King.  What  right  have  they  to 
assume  that  St.  Paul  meant  this  ?  St.  Paul  never  uses  the 
word  ambassador  at  all.  He  says  simply,  "  We  are  in  embas- 
sage from  Christ ;  and  Christ  beseeches  you  through  us." 
Most  true.  And  let  it  further  be  granted,  that  every  word 
that  the  clergj'man  speaks  is  literally  dictated  to  him  by 
Christ ;  that  he  can  make  no  mistake  in  delivering  his  mes- 
sage ;  and  that,  therefore,  it  is  indeed  Christ  himself  who 
speaks  to  us  the  word  of  life  through  the  messenger's  Hps. 
Does,  therefore,  the  messenger  represent  Christ  ?  Does  the 
channel  which  conveys  the  waters  of  the  Fountain  represent 
the  Fountain  itself  ?  Suppose,  when  we  went  to  draw  water 
at  a  cistern,  that  all  at  once  the  Leaden  Spout  should  become 
animated,  and  open  its  mouth  and  say  to  us.  See,  I  am  Vica- 
rious for  the  Fountain.  Whatever  respect  you  show  to  the 
Fountain,  show  some  part  of  it  to  me.  Should  we  not  answer 
the  Spout,  and  say.  Spout,  you  were  set  there  for  our  sei-vice, 
and  may  be  taken  away  and  thrown  aside  *  if  anything  goes 
wrong  with  you.     But  the  Fountain  will  flow  for  ever. 

Observe,  I  do  not  deny  a  most  solemn  authority  vested  in 
every  Christian  messenger  from  God  to  men.  I  am  prepared 
to  grant  this  to  the  uttermost ;  and  all  that  George  Herbert 
says,  in  the  end  of  the  Church-porch,  I  would  enforce,  at 
another  time  than  this,  to  the  uttermost.  But  the  Authority 
is  simply  that  of  a  King's  messenger ;  not  of  a  King's  Bepre^ 
sentative.  There  is  a  wide  difference  ;  all  the  difference  be- 
tween humble  service  and  blasphemous  usurpation. 
*  *'  By  just  jadgment  be  deposed,"  Art.  26. 


CONSTRUCTION  OF  SHEEPFOLDS.  29 

Well,  the  congregation  might  ask,  grant  him  a  King's  mes- 
senger in  cases  of  doctrine, — in  cases  of  discipline,  an  officer 
bearing  the  King's  commission.  How  far  are  we  to  obey 
him  ?     How  far  is  it  lawful  to  dispute  his  commands  ? 

For,  in  granting,  above,  that  the  Messenger  always  gave 
his  message  faithfully,  I  granted  too  much  to  my  adversaries, 
in  order  that  their  argument  might  have  all  the  weight  it  pos- 
sible' could.  The  Messengers  rarely  deliver  their  message 
faithfully  ;  and  sometimes  have  declared,  as  from  the  King, 
messages  of  their  own  invention.  How  far  are  we,  knowing 
them  for  King's  messengers,  to  believe  or  obey  them  ? 

Suppose  for  instance,  in  our  English  army,  on  the  eve  of 
some  great  battle,  one  of  the  colonels  were  to  give  this  order 
to  his  regiment.  "  My  men,  tie  your  belts  over  your  eyes, 
throw  down  your  muskets,  and  follow  me  as  steadily  as  you 
can,  through  this  marsh,  into  the  middle  of  the  enemy's  line," 
(this  being  precisely  the  order  issued  by  our  Puseyite  Church 
officers.)  It  might  be  questioned,  in  the  real  battle,  whether 
it  would  be  better  tliat  a  regiment  should  show  an  example 
of  insubordination,  or  be  cut  to  pieces.  But  happily  in  the 
Church,  there  is  no  such  difficulty  ;  for  the  King  is  always 
with  his  army  :  Not  only  with  his  arm}',  but  at  the  right 
hand  of  every  soldier  of  it.  Therefore,  if  any  of  their  col- 
onels give  them  a  strange  command,  all  they  have  to  do  is  to 
ask  the  King  ;  and  never  yet  any  Christian  asked  guidance  of 
his  King,  in  any  difficulty  whatsoever,  witliout  mental  reser- 
vation or  secret  resolution,  but  he  had  it  forthwith.  We  con- 
clude then,  finally,  that  the  authority  of  the  Clergy  is,  in  mat- 
ters of  discipline,  large  (being  executive,  first,  of  the  written 
laws  of  God,  and  secondly,  of  those  determined  and  agreed 
upon  by  the  body  of  the  Church),  in  matters  of  doctrine,  de- 
pendent on  their  recommending  themselves  to  every  man's 
conscience,  both  as  messengers  of  God,  and  as  themselves 
men  of  God,  perfect,  and  instructed  to  good  works."  * 

*  The  difference  between  the  authority  of  doctrine  and  discipline  is 
Leautifully  marked  in  2  Timothy  ii.  25,  and  Titus  ii.  12 — 15.  In  tlie 
first  pas.sage,  the  servant  of  God,  teaching  divine  doctrine,  must  not 
strive,  but  must  "in  iiie^kmss  instruct  those  that  oppose  themselves;  "  in 


30  NOTES  ON  THE 

6.  The  last  subject  which  we  had  to  investigate  was,  it  will 
be  remembered,  what  is  usually  called  the  connection  of 
"Church  and  State."  But,  by  our  defiuitiou  of  the  term 
Church,  throughout  the  whole  of  Christendom,  the  Church 
(or  society  of  professing  Christians)  is  the  State,  and  our  sub- 
ject is  therefore,  properly  speaking,  tlie  connection  of  the  lay 
and  clerical  officers  of  the  Church  ;  that  is  to  say,  the  degrees 
in  which  the  civil  and  ecclesiastical  governments  ought  to  in- 
terfere with  or  influence  each  other. 

It  would  of  course  be  vain  to  attempt  a  formal  inquiiy  into 
this  intricate  subject ; — I  have  only  a  few  detached  points  to 
notice  respecting  it. 

There  are  three  degrees  or  kinds  of  civil  government.  The 
first  and  lowest,  executive  merely ;  the  government  in  this 
sense  being  simply  the  National  Hand,  and  composed  of  indi- 
viduals who  administer  the  laws  of  the  nation,  and  execute  its 
established  purposes. 

The  second  kind  of  government  is  deliberative  ;  but  in  its 
deliberation,  representative  only  of  the  thoughts  and  will  of 
the  people  or  nation,  and  liable  to  be  deposed  the  instant  it 
ceases  to  express  those  thoughts  and  that  wUl.  This,  whatever 
its  form,  whether  centred  in  a  king  or  in  any  number  of  men, 
is  properly  to  be  called  Democratic.  The  third  and  highest 
kind  of  government  is  deliberative,  not  as  representative  of 
the  people,  but  as  chosen  to  take  separate  counsel  for  them, 
and  having  power  committed  to  it,  to  enforce  upon  them 
whatever  resolution  it  may  adopt,  whether  consistent  with 
their  will  or  not.  This  government  is  properly  to  be  called 
Monarchical,  whatever  its  form. 

I  see  that  politicians  and  writers  of  history  continually  run 
into  hopeless  error,  because  they  confuse  the  Form  of  a  gov- 
ernment with  its  Nature.  A  government  may  be  nominally 
vested  in  an  individual ;  and  yet  if  that  individual  be  in  such 
fear  of  those  beneath  him,  that  he  does  nothing  but  what  ho 

the  second  passage,  teaching  us  "  that  denying  ungodliness  and  worldly 
lusts  he  is  to  lire  soberly,  rigliteously,  and  godly  in  i\ns  present  world,"  the 
minister  is  to  speak,  exhort,  and  rebuke  with  all  authority — both 
luuctions  being  expressed  as  united  iu  2  Timothy  iv;  3. 


CONSTRUCTION  OF  SHEEPFOLDS.  31 

supposes  will  be  agreeable  to  them,  the  Government  is  Demo- 
cratic ;  on  the  other  hand,  the  Government  may  be  vested  in 
a  deliberative  assembly  of  a  thousand  men,  all  haviug  equal 
authority,  and  all  chosen  from  the  lowest  ranks  of  the  people  ; 
and  yet  if  that  assembly  act  independently  of  the  will  of  the 
people,  and  have  no  fear  of  them,  and  enforce  its  determina- 
tions upon  them,  the  government  is  Monarchical  ;  that  is  to 
sa}',  the  Assembly,  acting  as  One,  has  power  over  the  Many, 
while  in  the  case  of  the  weak  king,  the  Many  have  power  over 
the  One. 

A  Monarchical  Government,  acting  for  its  own  interests,  in- 
stead of  the  people's,  is  a  tyranny.  I  said  the  Executive  Gov- 
ernment was  the  hand  of  the  nation  ; — the  RepubUcan  Govern- 
ment is  in  like  manner  its  tongue.  The  Monarchical  Government 
is  its  head. 

All  true  and  right  Government  is  Monarchical,  and  of  the 
head.  What  is  its  best  form,  is  a  totally  different  question  ; 
but  unless  it  net  for  the  people,  and  not  as  representative  of 
the  people,  it  is  no  government  at  all ;  and  one  of  the  gross- 
est blockheadisms  of  the  English  in  the  present  day,  is  their 
idea  of  sending  men  to  Parliament  to  "represent  their  opin- 
ions." Whereas  their  only  true  business  is  to  find  out  the 
wisest  men  among  them,  and  send  them  to  Parliament  to 
represent  their  0x71  opinions,  and  act  upon  them.  Of  all  pup- 
pet shows  in  the  Satanic  Carnival  of  the  earth,  the  most  con- 
temptible puppet-show  is  a  Parliament  with  a  mob  pulling  the 
strings. 

Now,  of  these  three  states  of  government,  it  is  clear  that 
the  merely  executive  can  have  no  proper  influence  over  eccle- 
siastical affairs.  But  of  the  other  two,  the  first,  being  the 
voice  of  the  people,  or  voice  of  the  Clrurch,  must  have  such 
influence  over  the  Clergy  as  is  properly  vested  in  the  body  of 
the  Church.  The  second,  which  stands  in  the  same  relation 
to  the  people  as  a  father  does  to  his  family,  will  have  such 
farther  influence  over  ecclesiastical  matters,  as  a  father  has 
over  the  consciences  of  his  adult  children.  No  absolute  au- 
thority, therefoi-e,  to  enforce  their  attefidance  at  any  particular 
place  of  worship,   or  subscription  to  any  particular  deed. 


32  NOTES  ON  THE 

But  indisputable  authority  to  procure  for  them  such  religious 
instruction  as  he  deems  fittest,*  and  to  recommend  it  to  the  in 
by  every  means  in  his  power  ;  he  not  only  has  authority,  but 
is  under  obligation  to  do  this,  as  well  as  to  establish  such  dis- 
cij)lines  and  forms  of  worship  in  his  house  as  he  deems  most 
convenient  for  his  family  :  with  which  they  are  indeed  at  lib- 
erty to  refuse  compliance,  if  such  disciplines  appear  to  them 
clearly  opposed  to  the  law  of  God  ;  but  not  without  most 
solemn  conviction  of  their  being  so,  nor  without  deep  sorrow 
to  be  compelled  to  such  a  course. 

But  it  may  be  said,  the  Goverament  of  a  people  never  does 
stand  to  them  in  the  relation  of  a  father  to  his  family.  K  it  do 
not,  it  is  no  Government.     However  grossly  it  may  fail  in  its 


*  Observe,  this  and  the  following  conclusions  depend  entirely  on  the 
supposition  that  the  Government  is  part  of  the  Body  of  the  Church,  and 
that  some  pains  have  been  taken  to  compose  it  of  religious  and  wise 
men.  If  we  choose,  knowingly  and  deliberately,  to  compose  our  Parliii- 
ment,  in  great  part,  of  infidels  and  Papists,  gamblers  and  debtors,  we 
may  well  regret  its  power  over  the  Clerical  officer  ;  but  that  we  should, 
at  any  time,  so  compose  our  Parliament,  is  a  sign  that  the  Clergy  them- 
selves have  failed  in  their  duty,  and  the  Church  in  its  watchfulness ; — 
thus  the  evil  accumulates  in  re-action.  Whatever  I  say  of  the  responsi- 
bility or  authority  of  Government,  is  therefore  to  be  understood  only  as 
sequent  on  what  I  have  said  previously  of  the  necessit}'  of  closely  cir- 
cumscribing the  Church,  and  then  composing  the  Civil  Government  out 
of  the  circumscribed  Body.  Thus,  all  Papists  would  at  once  be  ren- 
dered incapable  of  share  in  it,  being  subjected  to  the  second  or  most 
severe  degree  of  excommunication — first,  as  idolaters,  by  1  Cor.  v.  10  ; 
then,  as  covetous  and  extortioners,  (selling  absolution,)  by  the  same  text ; 
and,  finally,  as  heretics  and  maintainers  of  falsehoods,  by  Titus  iii.  10, 
and  1  Tim.  iv.  1. 

I  do  not  write  this  hastily',  nor  without  earnest  consideration  both  o.' 
llie  difliculty  and  the  consequences  of  such  Church  Discipline.  But 
either  the  Bible  is  a  superannuated  book,  and  is  only  to  be  read  as  a 
record  of  past  days  ;  or  these  things  follow  from  it,  clearly  and  inevit- 
ably. That  we  live  in  days  when  the  Bible  has  become  impracticable, 
is  (if  it  be  so)  the  very  thing  I  desire  to  be  considered.  I  am  not  setting 
down  these  plans  or  schemes  as  at  present  possible.  I  do  not  know  how 
far  they  are  possible  ;  but  it  seems  to  me  that  God  has  plainly  com- 
manded them,  and  that,  therefore,  their  impracticability  is  a  thing  to  ba 
meditated  on. 


CONSTRUCTION  OF  SHEEPFOLDS.  33 

duty,  and  however  little  it  maj'  be  fitted  for  its  place,  if  it  be 
a  Government  at  all,  it  has  paternal  office  and  relation  to  the 
people.  I  find  it  written  on  the  one  hand, — "  Honor  thy 
Father  ;"  on  the  other, — "  Honor  the  King  ;"  on  the  one  hand, 
— "  Whoso  smiteth  his  Father,  shall  be  put  to  death  ;  "  *  on 
the  other, — "  They  that  resist  shall  receive  to  themselves 
damnation."  Well,  but,  it  may  be  farther  argued,  the  Clergy 
are  in  a  still  more  solemn  sense  the  Fathers  of  the  People,  and 
the  Peoi)le  are  the  beloved  Sons  ;  why  should  not,  therefore, 
the  Clergy  have  the  power  to  govern  the  civil  officers  ? 

For  two  veiy  clear  reasons. 

In  all  human  institutions  certain  evils  are  granted,  as  of 
necessity  ;  and,  in  organizing  such  institutions,  we  must  allow 
for  the  consequences  of  such  evils,  and  make  arrangements 
such  as  may  best  keep  them  in  check.  Now,  in  both  the 
civil  and  ecclesiastical  governments  there  will  of  necessity  be 
a  certain  number  of  bad  men.  The  wicked  civilian  has  com- 
paratively little  interest  in  overthrowing  ecclesiastical  author- 
ity ;  it  is  often  a  useful  help  to  him,  and  presents  in  itself 
little  which  seems  covetable.  But  the  wicked  ecclesiastical 
officer  has  much  interest  in  overthrowing  the  civilian,  and 
getting  the  political  power  into  his  own  hands.  As  far  as 
wicked  men  are  concerned,  thei'efore,  it  is  better  that  the 
State  should  have  power  over  the  Clergy,  than  the  Clergy 
over  the  State. 

Secondly,  supposing  both  the  Civil  and  Ecclesiastical  officer 
to  be  Christians  ;  there  is  no  fear  that  the  civil  officer  should 
under-rate  the  dignity  or  shorten  the  serviceableness  of  the 
minister  ;  but  there  is  considerable  danger  that  the  religious 
enthusiasm  of  the  minister  might  diminish  the  serviceableness 
of  the  civilian.  (The  History  of  Religious  Enthusiasm  should 
be  written  by  some  one  who  had  a  life  to  give  to  its  investi- 
gation ;  it  is  one  of  the  most  melancholy  pages  in  human 
records,  and  one  the  most  necessary  to  be  studied.)  There- 
fore, so  far  as  good  men  are  concerned,  it  is  better  the  State 
should  have  power  over  the  Clergy,  than  the  Clergy  over  the 
State. 

*  Exod.  xxi.  15. 
3 


34  NOTES  ON  THE 

This  we  might,  it  seems  to  me,  conclude  by  unassisted  rea- 
son. But  surely  the  whole  question  is,  without  any  need  of 
human  reason,  decided  by  the  history  of  Israel.  If  ever  a 
body  of  Clergy  should  have  received  independent  authority, 
the  Levitical  Priesthood  should  ;  for  they  were  indeed  a 
Priesthood,  and  more  holy  than  the  rest  of  the  nation.  But 
Aaron  is  always  subject  to  Moses.  All  solemn  revelation  is 
made  to  Moses,  the  civil  magistrate,  and  he  actually  com- 
mands Aaron  as  to  the  fulfilment  of  his  priestl}'  office,  and 
that  in  a  necessity  of  life  and  death  :  "  Go  and  make  an  atone- 
ment for  the  people."  Nor  is  anything  more  remarkable 
throughout  the  whole  of  the  Jewish  history  than  the  perfect 
subjection  of  the  Priestly  io  the  Kingly  Authority.  Thus 
Solomon  thrusts  out  Abiathar  from  being  priest,  1  Kings  ii. 
27  ;  and  Jeho.ihaz  administers  the  funds  of  the  Lord's  House, 
2  Kings  xii.  4,  though  that  money  was  actually  the  Atone- 
ment Money,  the  Ransom  for  Souls  (Exod.  xxx,  12). 

^Ve  have,  however,  also  the  beautiful  instance  of  Samuel 
uniting  in  himself  the  offices  of  Priest,  Prophet,  and  Judge  ; 
nor  do  I  insist  on  any  special  manner  of  subjection  of  Clergy 
to  ci\'il  officers,  or  vice,  versa  ;  but  only  on  the  necessity  of 
their  perfect  unity  and  influence  upon  each  other  in  every 
Christian  Kingdom.  Those  who  endeavor  to  effect  the  utter 
separation  of  ecclesiastical  and  civil  officers,  are  stiiving,  on 
the  one  hand,  to  expose  the  Clergy  to  the  most  gi-ievous  and 
most  subtle  of  temptations  from  their  own  spiritual  enthusiasm 
and  spii'itual  pride  ;  on  the  other,  to  deprive  the  civil  officer 
of  all  sense  of  religious  responsibility,  and  to  introduce  the 
fearful,  godless,  conscienceless,  and  soulless  policy  of  the 
Radical  and  the  (so  called)  Socialist.  Whereas,  the  ideal  of  all 
government  is  the  perfect  unity  of  the  two  bodies  of  officei-s, 
each  supporting  and  correcting  the  other ;  the  Clergy  having 
due  weight  in  all  the  national  councils ;  the  civil  officers  hav- 
ing a  solemn  reverence  for  God  in  all  their  acts ;  the  Clergy 
hallowing  all  worldly  policy  by  their  influence  ;  and  the  mag- 
istracy repressing  all  religious  enthusiasm  by  their  practical 
wisdom.  To  separate  the  two  is  to  endeavor  to  separate  the 
daily  life  of  the  nation  from  God,  and  to  map  out  the  domin- 


CONSTRUCTION  OF  SHEEPFOLDS.  35 

ion  of  the  soul  into  two  provuices — one  of  Atheism,  the  other 
of  Enthusiasm.  These,  then,  were  the  reasons  which  caused 
me  to  sjjeak  of  the  idea  of  separation  of  Church  and  State  as 
Fatuity  ;  for  wliat  Fatuitj^  can  be  so  great  as  the  not  having 
God  in  our  thoughts  ;  and,  in  any  act  or  office  of  life,  saying 
in  our  hearts,  "  There  is  no  God." 

Much  more  I  would  fain  say  of  these  things,  but  not  now  : 
this  only,  I  must  emphatically  assert,  in  conclusion  : — That 
the  schism  between  the  so  called  Evangelical  and  High  Church 
parties  in  Britain,  is  enough  to  shake  many  men's  faith  in  the 
truth  or  existence  of  Religion  at  all.  It  seems  to  me  one  of 
the  most  disgi-aceful  scenes  in  Ecclesiastical  histor}',  tliat  Prot- 
estantism should  be  paralyzed  at  its  very  heart  by  jealousies, 
based  on  little  else  than  mere  difference  between  high  and 
low  breeding.  For  the  essential  differences,  in  the  religious 
opinions  of  the  two  parties,  are  sufHciently  marked  in  two  men 
whom  we  may  take  as  the  highest  representatives  of  each — 
George  Herbert  and  John  Milton  ;  and  I  do  not  think  there 
would  have  been  much  difficulty  in  attuning  those  two,  if  one 
could  have  got  them  together.  But  the  real  difficulty,  nowa- 
da^'s,  lies  in  the  sin  and  folly  of  both  parties  :  in  the  supercili- 
ousness of  the  one,  and  the  rudeness  of  the  other.  Evidently, 
however,  the  sin  lies  most  at  the  High  Church  door,  for  the 
Evangelicals  are  much  more  ready  to  act  with  Churchmen 
than  they  with  the  Evangelicals  ;  and  I  believe  that  this  state 
of  things  cannot  continue  much  longer  ;  and  that  if  the  Church 
of  England  does  not  forthwith  unite  with  herself  the  entire 
Evangelical  bod}-,  both  of  England  and  Scotland,  and  take  her 
stand  with  them  against  the  Papacy,  her  hour  has  struck. 
She  cannot  any  longer  serve  two  masters  ;  nor  make  curtsies 
alternately  to  Christ  and  anti-Christ.  That  she  lias  done  this 
is  visible  enough  by  the  state  of  Europe  at  this  instant. 
Three  centuries  since  Luther — three  hundred  years  of  Prot- 
estant knowledge — and  the  Papacy  not  yet  overthrown ! 
Christ's  truth  still  restrained,  in  narrow  dawn,  to  the  white 
cliffs  of  England  and  white  crests  of  the  Alps  ;— the  morning 
star  paused  in  its  course  in  heaven  ; — the  sun  and  moon  stayed, 
with  Satan  for  their  Joshua. 


36  NOTES  ON  THE 

But  how  to  unite  the  two  gi*eat  sects  of  pcoralyzed  Protes- 
tants ?  By  keeping  simply  to  Scripture.  The  members  of  the 
Scottish  Church  have  not  a  shadow  of  excuse  for  refusing 
Episcopacy ;  it  has  indeed  been  abused  among  them ;  griev- 
ously abused  ;  but  it  is  in  the  Bible  ;  and  that  is  all  they 
have  a  right  to  ask. 

They  have  also  no  shadow  of  excuse  for  refusing  to  employ 
a  written  form  of  prayer.  It  may  not  be  to  their  taste — it 
may  not  be  the  wa}'  in  which  they  like  to  pi'ay  ;  but  it  is  no 
(juestion,  at  present,  of  likes  or  dislikes,  but  of  duties  ;  and 
ibe  acceptance  of  such  a  form  on  theu'  part  would  go  half 
way  to  reconcile  them  with  their  brethren.  Let  them  allege 
such  objections  as  they  can  reasonably  advance  against  the 
English  form,  and  let  these  be  carefully  and  humbly  weighed 
by  the  pastors  of  both  churches  :  some  of  them  ought  to  be 
at  once  forestalled.  For  the  English  Church,  on  the  other 
hand,  mud  cut  the  term  Priest  entirely  out  of  her  Prayer- 
book,  and  substitute  for  it  that  of  Minister  or  Elder  ;  the 
passages  respecting  absolution  must  be  thrown  out  also,  ex- 
cept the  doubtful  one  in  the  Moi-ning  Service,  in  which  there 
is  no  harm  ;  and  then  there  would  be  only  the  Baptismal 
question  left,  which  is  one  of  woi'ds  rather  than  of  things, 
and  might  easily  be  settled  in  Synod,  turning  the  refractory 
Clergy  out  of  their  otfices,  to  go  to  Rome  if  they  chose. 
Then,  when  the  Articles  of  Faith  and  form  of  worship  had 
been  agi'eed  upon  between  the  English  and  Scottish  Churches, 
the  written  forms  and  articles  should  be  carefully  translated 
into  the  European  languages,  and  offered  to  the  acceptance 
of  the  Protestant  churches  on  the  Continent,  with  earnest 
entreaty  that  they  would  receive  them,  and  due  entertainment 
of  all  such  objections  as  they  could  reasonably  allege  ;  and 
thus  the  whole  body  of  Protestants,  united  in  one  great  Fold, 
would  indeed  go  in  and  out,  and  find  pasture  ;  and  the  work 
appointed  for  them  would  be  done  quickly,  and  Antichrist 
overthrown. 

Impossible  :  a  thousand  times  impossible ! — I  hear  it  ex- 
claimed against  me.  No — not  injjwssible.  Christ  does  not 
order  impossibilities,  and  He  lias  ordered  us  to  be  at  peace, 


CONSTRUCTION  OF  SHEEPFOLDS.  37 

one  with  another.  Nay,  it  is  answered — He  came  not  to  send 
peace,  but  a  sword.  Yes,  verily  :  to  send  a  sword  upon  earth, 
but  not  within  His  Church  ;  for  to  His  Church  He  said, 
''My  Peace  I  leave  with  you." 


THK  END. 


I. 

II. 
III. 

IV. 
V. 
VI. 
VII. 
VIII. 
IX. 
X. 

xt. 

xrr. 

xni. 
XIV. 

XV. 
XVI. 

xvn. 

XVIII. 
.XIX. 


XXIl. 
XXIII. 
XXIV. 


THE  WORKS  OF 

John  Ruskin 

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POEMS,    POETRY   OF  ARCHITECTURE,    AND   GIOTrO. 

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SEVEN     LAMPS     OF     ARCHITECTURE,     LECTURES    OX     ARCHITEC- 
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mornings  i.n  florence,  time  and  tide,  the  art  o:'  l.ng- 

LAND. 
KING   OF  THE   GOLDEN    RIVER,  THE    EAGLE'S    NEST,  DEUCALION. 
ARROWS   OF  THE   CHACE. 
OUR    FATHERS    HAVE   TOI.D   US,   THE   LAWS   OF    FESOLE. 


UNITED    STATES    BOOK  COMPANY,   rUBLISHERS,  N.    Y 


THE  WORKS 

OF 

JOHN    RUSK IN 

rRINTF.n    IPOM    NKW    PLATES,  CLlAR    TYPE,  UNIFORMLY    AN!)    HAND- 
tMELY    HOUND  IN   THREE   DIFFERENT  STYLES. 

12  vols.  i2mo.  cloth,  gilt,            .            -            .            -            .  $12.00 

12  vols.  i2mo.  half  crushed  levant,             ....  18.00 

12  vcls.  i2mo.  half  ca'f,  marbled  edges,            •            -            •  18.00 

12  vols,  library  edition,  8vo.  cloth,  gilt  top,            ...  18.00 

12  vols,  library  edition,  8vo.,  half  calf,              ...  36.00 

I.  MODERN   PAINTERS,  I.  &   II. 

11.  MODERN   PAINTERS,  HI.  &  IV. 

HI.  MODERN    PAINTERS,  V.,  POEMS,  POETRY  OF   ARCH.,  AND   GIOTTO. 

IV.  STONES   OF   VENICE,  I.  &  IL 

V.  STONES   OF   VENICE,    HI.,   .AND    SEVEN    LAMPS    OF   ARCHITECTURE, 
ETC. 

VI.  SESAME  AND   LILIES,  UNTO   THIS    LAST,    PRE-RAPHAELITISM,    ETC. 

VII.  FORS  CLAVIGERA,  I.  &  II. 

VIII.  FORS   CLAVIGERA,  IIL  &  IV. 

IX.  ETHICS  OF  THE  DUST,  FICTION  FAIR  AND  FOUL,  PROSERPINA,  ETC. 

X.  ST.   mark's  rest,  LECTURES  ON  ART,  ETC. 

XI.  MORNINGS   IN   FLORENCE,  TIME  AND  TIDE. 

XII.  ARROWS  OF  THE  CHACE,  THE   LAWS  OF   FESOLE,   ETC. 


RUSKIN'S  MODERN  PAINTERS. 

5  vols.  1 2mo.  cloth,  gilt,              .....  $6.25 

5  vols.  1 2mo.  half  crushed  levant,                ....  7.50 

5  vols.  i2mo.  half  calf,  marbled  edges,              •            .             .  7.50 


RUSKIN'S  STONES  OF  VENICE 

3  vols.  i2mo,  cloth,  gilt,  -         '-  •  -  -  ^3  7S 

3  vols.  i2mo.  half  crushed  levant,    .  -  -  •  •      4.50 

3  vols.  1 2mo.  half  calf,  marbled  edges,    -  -  -  -  A-5'> 

A  finer  library  edition  of  each  of  the  three  sets  above  is  also  pab- 
lished  in  extra  cloth,  gilt  top,  and  extra  half  calf. 

UNITED    STATES   BOOK   COMPANY,    PUBLISHERS,   N.   Y 


UC  SOUTHERN  REGiONAL  U 


LOVELL'S    LITERATURE 


43. 
44. 
45. 
46. 


Fobs  Clavigera,  I     By  Ruskin 

FoRS  Clavigeka,  II.    By  Kuskin 

Fous  Clavigera,  III.    By  Ruskin 

FoRS  Clavigera,  IV.    By  Kuskin. 

» „«„    ««T     AT>r.LiiTmTITnE    AHT»    PAINTIKQ. 


Bv  Ruskin... 


University  of  California 

SOUTHERN  REGIONAL  LIBRARY  FACILITY 

405  Hiigard  Avenue,  Los  Angeles,  CA  90024-1388 

Return  this  material  to  the  library 

from  which  it  was  borrowed. 


30 
80 

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80 

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25 
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Paris 


1889 


COLGATE'S 

PER  FU  M  "^.S. 


AND 


SOAPS. 


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